Sentence Correction

Our cat is cuter than those in the shelter.


The solution says..
Our cat is cuter than the cats in the shelter.
can we say...
Our cat is cuter than that in the shelter.

cat is the subject and is singular so if we use demonstrative pronoun 'That' i think it will serve the purpose

please explain if only one of the explanation is correct or both or any other explanation..
Thank you!!

akash singhal wrote:Our cat is cuter than those in the shelter.


The solution says..
Our cat is cuter than the cats in the shelter.
can we say...
Our cat is cuter than that in the shelter.

cat is the subject and is singular so if we use demonstrative pronoun 'That' i think it will serve the purpose

please explain if only one of the explanation is correct or both or any other explanation..
Thank you!!

Hello akash singhal,

The concept being tested here is 'Co-reference'. It means that the pronoun and the antecedent refers to the same actual thing 'the referent'. The pronouns it,they,them refer to the same actual thing as the referent and not copies or similar items like the referent. Whereas, the pronouns that and those must refer to replicas of the referent not the original referent. However, the pronoun must match in number with the referent even if the pronoun is referring to replicas of the referent. You have to preserve the original intended meaning of the sentence. If the sentence intended to compare plural replicas of the original referent to the singular referent then you must replace the pronoun with plural noun since the plural pronoun cannot compare with singular replica of the singular referent. The comparison will become illogical. There must be plural referent for multiple replicas. So you must provide the plural noun instead. However, all this depends on the original intended meaning of the sentence. You must discern the original meaning from the given context first. The given sentence suggests that one cat(singular referent) is compared to multiple other cats(multiple replicas). So you must preserve this original intended meaning and hence provide the plural noun instead of plural pronoun those. So, IN THE GIVEN SENTENCE(CONTEXT), the second version will not be appropriate, if you want to preserve the original intended meaning !

Aman verma wrote:

akash singhal wrote:Our cat is cuter than those in the shelter.


The solution says..
Our cat is cuter than the cats in the shelter.
can we say...
Our cat is cuter than that in the shelter.

cat is the subject and is singular so if we use demonstrative pronoun 'That' i think it will serve the purpose

please explain if only one of the explanation is correct or both or any other explanation..
Thank you!!

Hello akash singhal,

The concept being tested here is 'Co-reference'. It means that the pronoun and the antecedent refers to the same actual thing 'the referent'. The pronouns it,they,them refer to the same actual thing as the referent and not copies or similar items like the referent. Whereas, the pronouns that and those must refer to replicas of the referent not the original referent. However, the pronoun must match in number with the referent even if the pronoun is referring to replicas of the referent. You have to preserve the original intended meaning of the sentence. If the sentence intended to compare plural replicas of the original referent to the singular referent then you must replace the pronoun with plural noun since the plural pronoun cannot compare with singular replica of the singular referent. The comparison will become illogical. There must be plural referent for multiple replicas. So you must provide the plural noun instead. However, all this depends on the original intended meaning of the sentence. You must discern the original meaning from the given context first. The given sentence suggests that one cat(singular referent) is compared to multiple other cats(multiple replicas). So you must preserve this original intended meaning and hence provide the plural noun instead of plural pronoun those. So, IN THE GIVEN SENTENCE(CONTEXT), the second version will not be appropriate, if you want to preserve the original intended meaning !

THANKS aman
your argument makes sense
Can u give me some examples to support it please

akash singhal wrote: THANKS aman
your argument makes sense
Can u give me some examples to support it please

Hello akash singhal,

The pronouns that and those cannot be used for co-reference,meaning that 'that' and 'those' do not refer to the same actual thing represented by the noun. However, 'that' and 'those' refer to the replicas of the original noun referent. But, a singular noun cannot provide multiple replicas; it can only provide a singular replica. For example:

My car is bigger than those with my neighbours.

In this example, my car is singular and hence can provide only a singular replica for comparison. However, 'those' is a plural pronoun and cannot compare with the singular replica of my car.The comparison is illogical. We need either a plural noun 'my cars' or singular 'that' to make the comparison logical. However,since, we are given in the original sentence 'than those with my neighbours', the intended meaning of the sentence is to compare multiple cars of my neighbours with the the singular 'my car'. We must preserve this intended meaning. The only possible recourse is to replace the pronoun altogether with a noun 'the cars'. The cars can compare with my car, since both are nouns. The 'those' in the original sentence has no referent since 'my car' is singular and its replica is also singular whereas those is plural.