Demonstrative pronoun

Demonstrative pronoun

Demonstrative pronouns are pronouns that point to specific things. "This, that, these, those, none and neither" are Demonstrative Pronouns that substitute nouns when the nouns they replace can be understood from the context.

At the same time, to indicate whether they are close or far, in space or time, from the speaker in the moment of speaking. They also indicate whether they are replacing singular or plural words. Some grammars describe them as members of the class of function words called "determiners", since they identify nouns and other nominals.

* "This" (singular) and "These" (plural) refer to an object or person NEAR the speaker.
* "That" (singular) and "Those" (plural) refer to an object or person further AWAY.

For example:

* This is unbelievable.
* In this example, "this" can refer to an object or situation close in space or in time to the speaker.
* That is unbelievable.
* In this example, "that" can refer to an object or situation farther in space or in time to the speaker.
* These are unbelievable.
* In this example, "these" can refer to some objects close in space or in time to the speaker.
* Those are unbelievable.
* In this example, "those" can refer to some objects farther in space or in time to the speaker.

Position

* Before the noun.
* Before the word 'one'.
* Before an adjective + noun.
* Alone when the noun is 'understood'

Examples

* Who owns that house? (distant - physical )
* Is this John's house? (near - physical )
* That's nothing to do with me.. (distant - psychological )
* This is a nice surprise! (near - psychological )

How do I make a compound sentence?

compound sentence

When you have two or more short, independent, simple sentences which are of equal weight you can join them together using special words called conjunctions.
e.g. 'I hate curry.' is a simple sentence.
'I like Thai food.' is also a simple sentence.
You can put these together to make one, longer and more interesting compound sentence using a conjunction -
'I hate curry' + but + 'I like Thai food' = 'I hate curry, but I like Thai food.'

* Junctions join two or more roads together, so we use conjunctions to join two or more short sentences together
* Commas are not conjunctions and they should never be used to join short sentences together (commas aren't sticky, so you can't use them to stick information together!).
* These are the most common conjunctions:

and, as, but, or, so

* Try to avoid using the same conjunction over and over again. It is much better to 'mix and match'.

Complex sentences

Complex sentences in Grammar

Constant use of short sentences can be a bit strange to read.
To make your writing more interesting, you can use two other sorts of longer sentences. Factsheet 1 looked at 'compound' sentences. This factsheet looks at 'complex' sentence.

How do I make a complex sentence?
When you make a compound sentence (see factsheet 1) you are joining two or more simple sentences together with a conjunction. If you took the conjunction away, the sentences would be complete and they would still make sense.
e.g. 'I hate curry, but I like Thai food.'= 'I hate curry' + but + 'I like Thai food'
This isn't the same for complex sentences. Complex sentences don't just divide into neat, complete, simple sentences if you take out the conjunctions. In complex sentences the conjunction is used to join together clauses. A clause is a group of words that contains a subject and a verb. Some of these clauses might be complete short sentences, but in a complex sentence at least one of them will depend on the conjunction for its meaning.
In other words, if you take the conjunction away, the sentence won't divide into complete units that make sense by themselves.
e.g. 'The dinner was burned because she had forgotten it.'
= 'The dinner was burned' + 'because' + 'she had forgotten it.'
This is a complex sentence:

* 'The dinner was burned' = complete, short sentence
* 'because' = conjunction (joining word)
* 'she had forgotten it' = subordinate clause. This doesn't make sense on its own. What had she forgotten? This is called a 'subordinate clause' because without the rest of the sentence it doesn't really make sense.

'Although I'm not very good, I really enjoy playing football.'
= 'Although' + 'I'm not very good' + 'I really enjoy playing football.'
Again, this is a complex sentence:

* 'Although' = conjunction (joining word). Yes, sometimes conjunctions can appear at the beginning of a sentence!
* 'I'm not very good' = subordinate clause. This doesn't make sense on its own. What are you not very good at? This is called a 'subordinate clause' because without the rest of the sentence it doesn't really make sense.
* 'I enjoy playing football' = complete short sentence