Editing Dutch grammar (section)

===Demonstrative determiners===
Like English, Dutch has two sets of demonstrative for different degrees of distance. A third, unspecific degree also exists, which is fulfilled by the personal pronouns, but see further below on pronominal adverbs.

The demonstratives inflect like indefinite adjectives, but irregularly. They are themselves definite in meaning, so any following adjectives will occur in the definite form.

{|
|
{| class="wikitable"
|+ Proximal demonstrative
|
! Masculine
! Feminine
! Neuter
|-
! Singular
| deze
| deze
| dit
|-
! Plural
| deze
| deze
| deze
|}
|
{| class="wikitable"
|+ Distal demonstrative
|
! Masculine
! Feminine
! Neuter
|-
! Singular
| die
| die
| dat
|-
! Plural
| die
| die
| die
|}
|}

When the demonstrative pronoun is used [[exophora|exophorically]] (referring to something that has not yet been mentioned in the text) with a [[Copula (linguistics)|copula]] verb, the "uninflected" forms {{lang|nl|dit}} and {{lang|nl|dat}} are always used:
* {{lang|nl|'''Dit''' is mijn nieuwe auto. Ik heb '''deze''' gisteren gekocht.}} ("This is my new car. I bought this one yesterday.")
Even though {{lang|nl|auto}} is of common gender and otherwise requires the form {{lang|nl|deze}}. In this sentence, the first pronoun ({{lang|nl|dit}}) is exophoric, while the second one ({{lang|nl|deze}}) refers back to {{lang|nl|auto}}.

The exophoric pronoun, when used in a predicative sentence, is always the complement and never the subject. The inflection of the verb follows the other argument instead, and will be plural even when the pronoun is not:
* {{lang|nl|Dat is een nieuw huis.}} ("That is a new house")
* {{lang|nl|Dit is mijn vader.}} ("This is my father")
* {{lang|nl|Dat zijn nieuwe huizen.}} ("Those are new houses", notice singular {{lang|nl|dat}}, with plural verb {{lang|nl|zijn}} agreeing with plural noun {{lang|nl|huizen}})
* {{lang|nl|Dit zijn mijn kinderen.}} ("These are my children", same with {{lang|nl|dit}})