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이것 책상이다 = This is a desk.
I have just consulted my dictionary and it said as follows.
이 = this (it may be a noun or pronoun)
것 = thing (it is a noun)
So 이것 = this thing.
I am wondering if Korean grammar is similar to English or not. As for English:
이 = this (it may be an adjective or determiner)
것 = thing (it is a noun)
In Korean, can 이 also be considered as an adjective in that sentence?
By itself, 이 is called a 관형사 - this is sometimes translated "undeclinable adjective", but it includes what are called determiners (like "this") in English as well as certain so-called adjectives, like 새 (new) that cannot be used as the predicate, and thus do not include any 어미 (verb endings). 관형사 always precedes a noun/substantive:
이 꽃 (this flower).
이것 is a different word - it is a pronoun (대명사), though etymologically it comes from the 관형사 이 + 명사 것 (thing). It can also be translated as "this" in English:
이것은 책이다. (This is a book).
You can see that in both of my examples, 이/이것 is translated to English "this", but there's a difference: in the first, it is the determiner "this", and in the second, it's the pronoun "this".
