I came across the following sentence on a website:
Deaf children's emotional development differs from that of hearing
children.
I am guessing that the sentence simply mean that deaf children's emotional development differs from hearing children. But I may not be aware that the phrase "from that of" could have changed the meaning of the sentence.
How does the phrase "from that of" add meaning to the sentence?
What does "that" refer to in the sentence?
Best Answer
That is just a placeholder. Don't worry about whole phrase "from that of", just look at its individual parts:
is the same as
or, to put it another way: