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Demonstrative adjectives

The adjectives are seven fractions. We have already seen the adjectives of quality; now we are going to grapple the demonstrative ones.

There are only four demonstrative adjectives and they usually come before the nouns or pronouns 'one' or 'ones'. They are as follows,
  1. 'This' which demonstrates a singular person or object that is close:
    • This pen is my pen.
    • This is a smart girl.

  2. 'That' for a singular far away person or thing.
    • That boy over there is my nephew.
    • That is the car my father bought yesterday.

  3. 'These' is the adjective we use to point to a group of people or things that are near.
    • These shoes are expensive
    • These people come to see you.

  4. 'Those' indicating a group of people or things from two on and are 'over there'
    • Those are my brothers (over there)
    • Those are the tools I talked about last time.

As you can see this category of adjectives is the only one that agrees with its noun in number. These adjectives are followed by 'one' or 'ones' when there is comparison between two things of the same type:

  1. That watch is expensive but this (one) is cheap.
  2. Don't eat this egg. Eat that (one).
  3. These people are rich but those (ones) are poor.

See that the pronouns (one) and (ones) in the examples above are put between brackets; which means that they can be omitted as being optional. i.e. the meaning of the sentence is understood without them.

In other situations the pronouns 'one' and 'ones' after 'this', 'that', 'these' or 'those' are necessary especially when there is another adjective (of quality) between the demonstrative adjective and the pronoun as in the following examples.
  1. As I need some pens, I'll buy these blue ones.
  2. Put on that tight shirt; I'll wear this baggy one.