What is a demonstrative adjective?
• A demonstrative adjective is an adjective used to specifically describe the position of something or someone in space or time. The most commonly used demonstrative adjectives are this, that, these, and those.
• We use demonstrative adjectives to describe the physical location of something relative to the speaker. The adjectives this and these refer to closer objects or people, and the adjectives that and those refer to objects or people further away.
• This and that are used to modify singular nouns, and these and those are used to modify plural nouns
- Example: I usually don't like dogs but I like this dog.
- Example: Those birds you see over there are wild ducks.
• The second way we use demonstrative adjectives is to refer to moments in time. Just as in the previous examples, this and these are used to refer to current, recent, or closely upcoming moments in time while that and those are used to refer to moments that occurred or will occur further away from the current moment.
- Example: Those summers when we were young were so much fun!
- Example: This weekend, we are going to the mountains.