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If there are so many demonstrative pronouns in German, what is the point of using "das" in a sentence like "Das ist ein Auto."? Why don't we just say "Dieses ist ein Auto."?
Intuitively I know that it would be incorrect to say "Dieses ist ein Auto", but I need someone to explain me this from the grammar point of view.
Why should one say "das ist ein/eine", instead of "dieses/diese/dieser ist ein/eine ..."? Is it something about the sentence structure?
Hubert Schölnast has nicely explained the use of demonstrative pronouns.
However, I do not think that the phrase "Dieses ist ein Auto" is wrong. Yes, it is perhaps an unusul formulation and in most cases "Das ist ein Auto" should be preferred, but in a certain context I would nevertheless use it.
For example, on a parking lot I could point to a car and say "Dieses ist mein Auto". Of course, "Das ist mein Auto" would also do and most people would use this phrase. But "dieser / diese / dieses" has more emphasis than "der / die / das" and therefore it can be used correctly if one wants to identify a certain object in a collection of things or just to put special emphasis to something.
An example from the bible is Matthäus 3.17:
Dieser ist mein lieber Sohn, an dem ich Wohlgefallen habe. [Elberfelder Bibel]
But I have to admit that there other translations like
Das ist mein geliebter Sohn, an dem ich Wohlgefallen habe. [Zürcher Bibel]
Dies ist mein lieber Sohn, an dem ich Wohlgefallen habe. [Lutherbibel 2017]
See here.
Demonstrative pronouns are not really freely interchangeable.
dieser, diese, dieses
You use these demonstrative pronouns if you use it as an attribute of a noun, and you use it to describe something that is close to you:
Masculine: Dieser Wagen ist alt.
Feminine: Diese Karre ist alt.
Neuter: Dieses Auto ist alt.
jener, jene, jenes
Same as before, but for things that are far away from the speaker:
Masculine: Jener Wagen ist alt.
Feminine: Jene Karre ist alt.
Neuter: Jenes Auto ist alt.
der, die, das
You can use them independent from the distance, and you also can use them as attributes, but when you do so, they often will be interpreted as articles instead of pronouns:
Masculine: Der Wagen ist alt.
Feminine: Die Karre ist alt.
Neuter: Das Auto ist alt.
But there is an alternative usage (substantival use, see the distinction in DWDS), where you can use the pronoun alone as subject (also as object, but I show subjects in my examples)
Masculine: Der ist alt.
Feminine: Die ist alt.
Neuter: Das ist alt.
dies
This demonstrative pronoun is for substantival usage for things close to you:
M: Dies ist der Wagen meiner Schwester.
F: Dies ist die Karre meiner Schwester.
N: Dies ist das Auto meiner Schwester.
jenes
Like "dies", but for things far away from the speaker, but this version is rarely used:
M: Jenes ist der Wagen meiner Schwester.
F: Jenes ist die Karre meiner Schwester.
N: Jenes ist das Auto meiner Schwester.
das
This is the distance-independent version for substantival use:
M: Das ist der Wagen meiner Schwester.
F: Das ist die Karre meiner Schwester.
N: Das ist das Auto meiner Schwester.
And of course all these pronouns have different forms in different grammatical cases, and they all also have a plural form.
So, when you say
wrong: Dieses ist ein Auto.
Then you use a pronoun that should used as an attribute in an substantival manner. For substantival usage you can use:
correct: Das ist ein Auto. (best choice)
correct: Dies ist ein Auto. (also fine, but only if it's close to you)
correct: Jenes ist ein Auto. (rarely used, only correct if it's far away. The better version is "das".)
