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rule: You can use distributive pronouns as a stand alone or by themselves. In what way does the distributive pronoun stand alone in the following sentences? Does this mean they stand alone without a noun following them or in what way do these distributives pronouns stand alone?

Did you do [ that]? I'd like to buy [these]. Which of [those] would you like?

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  • Do you understand the term "stand alone"? That is maybe what you need to look up.
    – Lambie
    Commented Dec 6, 2021 at 16:06
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    I've just searched both the Internet and Google Books for "Distributive pronoun". The vast majority of matches from both sources seem to be low-quality text (from non-native Anglophones) intended as TEFL resources. From what I can see, "distributive pronouns" means words like each, either, neither, any, no-one and none (they're singular pronouns that can be used to refer to one of a group). But that, these, those aren't "distributive" - they're demonstrative pronouns.
    – FumbleFingers
    Commented Dec 6, 2021 at 17:17
  • Sorry, I'm not clear: is part of this question a quote from another source? To be honest, I'm confused by "... as a stand alone or by themselves." Doesn't that mean the same thing? Also, "that," "these" and "those" are not what I would call distributive pronouns
    – Andy Bonner
    Commented Dec 6, 2021 at 17:17
  • @FumbleFingers (In fairness, I didn't have a ready answer either and Googled it. I'm not sure that it's an invalid linguistic concept, though.
    – Andy Bonner
    Commented Dec 6, 2021 at 17:19
  • Also, a bit of a red herring, but "stand-alone" is more often found in dictionaries as an adjective, not a noun (though note that link has some noun examples), and either hyphenated or combined into "standalone."
    – Andy Bonner
    Commented Dec 6, 2021 at 17:20

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