Premodifiers are usually adjectives, which come before a noun and modify its meaning. When placed before an adjective, a premodifier describes the adjective and alters its meaning.

There are three degrees of adjectives: positive, comparative and superlative. Positive adjectives are words or phrases that express something about the noun itself. Comparative adjectives express something about a noun as compared to another noun. Superlative adjectives compare the noun to more than two nouns.

This is an example of an adjective used in the positive degree: “The poor man begs.” (The adjective is “poor.”)
This is an example of the comparative degree: “The poorer man begs more.” (The comparative adjective is “poorer.”)
And, finally, the superlative degree is shown here: “The poorest man begs most.” (The superlative is “poorest.”)
When preceding words that don’t admit of -er or -est endings, ‘more,’ ‘less,’ ‘most’ and ‘least’ count as part of the adjective phrase.

Using premodifiers with degrees of adjectives either intensifies or dulls the adjective. Consider the example, “I’m feeling a little better.” The phrase “a little” modifies the meaning of “better,” and is, therefore, a premodifying phrase. Following is a list of other premodifiers used with the comparative degree:

slightly
a bit
much
rather
somewhat
a lot more

The premodifier “very” can be used with the superlative degree of adjectives to add emphasis. It must be preceded by a determiner, like ‘my,’ ‘a,’ and ‘the.’
For example, “She’s my very best friend.” Or, “You’re the very worst driver!”

Two purposes are served by a demonstrative pronoun in English: It indicates an object without identifying it and expresses the speaker’s proximity to the object.

There are four examples of demonstrative pronouns: this, that, those and these. ‘This’ and ‘these’ refer to objects that are close to the speaker, while ‘that’ and ‘those’ are used to indicate that the object referred to is far away.

There is often confusion between demonstrative pronouns and adjectives. ‘This,’ ‘that,’ ‘those’ and ‘these’ are not always used as pronouns; they can sometimes serve as demonstrative adjectives. Adjectives are words that describe nouns. You can tell if these four words are being used as pronouns or adjectives by observing whether or not the demonstrative word is followed by a noun.

“That car is fast,” for example. Here, ‘that’ is used as a demonstrative adjective because it is followed by the noun it indicates. The word ‘that’ in this example describes something about the car, namely, that it is “over there” as opposed to “right here.” On the other hand, a demonstrative pronoun is the subject of its sentences.

There is one gray area for this rule; demonstrative pronouns can be used in a sentence with the name of the person they refer to. “That is John,” for example. ‘That’ is still the subject of the sentence. ‘John’ gives information about what ‘that’ is. Other than this type of usage in sentences referring to people, demonstrative pronouns are used only to refer to things.

The semicolon and colons are two distinct marks used frequently in the English language. Although the semicolon may resemble the colon, its function is not the same. It can be substituted for a period in some cases; in others, it works more like a comma. Let’s take a look at its various uses by studying some examples.

Most commonly, it is used to join two independent clauses into one sentence without the use of a conjunction (such as ‘and’ or ‘but’). ‘The water has reached its boiling point’ and ‘The time has come to cook the noodles’ are two sentences that can be connected this way: ‘The water in the pot has reached its boiling point; it is time to cook the noodles.’ When a conjunctive adverb (also, for example, as a result, therefore, instead) is part of the second independent clause, the semicolon precedes it: ‘Last night’s blizzard shut down transportation; therefore, schools are closed today.’

Whenever items in a long list need separating, and commas have already been used, semicolon use is advised: ‘Please recycle these household goods: aluminum cans; cardboard boxes and newspapers; plastic milk cartons and containers; glass bottles and jars.’

Note the the colon’s placements in the sentence above — it introduces an important point in one spot and a list in another. By learning these distinctions, you will know how and when to punctuate properly, with either a semicolon or colon.