Pronouns : The substitute for Nouns
This blog of the series English Grammar — Made Easy contains advice, guidance, hints and tips to understand one more part of speech ‘Pronouns’ — to help you on your journey of learning Grammar.
· A pronoun is a combination of two words: pro+noun.
· That means a Pronoun is a word that is used in place of a noun or noun phrase. It means a Pronoun is a substitute for a noun or a noun phrase.
· Pronouns refer to either a noun that has already been mentioned or to a noun that does not need to be named specifically.
· The noun that a pronoun replaces is known as antecedent.
KINDS OF PRONOUNS
1. Personal
2. Possessive
3. Demonstrative
4. Interrogative
5. Reflexive or Emphatic
6. Relative
7. Indefinite
PERSONAL PRONOUNS
Personal pronouns are pronouns that stand for previously named or implied people, things, or groups.
They are the most common pronouns, which refer to the person or people speaking or writing (firstperson),
the person or people being spoken to (second person),
or other people or things (third person).
Like nouns, personal pronouns can function as either the subject of a verb or the object of a verb.
For Example:
· Our teacher likes him.
· He loves to study French.
Most of the personal pronouns have different subject and object forms:
POSSESSIVE PRONOUNS
Possessive Pronouns refer to things or people that belong to someone. It shows relation or belongingness.
The main possessive pronouns are : mine, yours, his, hers, its, ours, and theirs.
Each personal pronoun has a corresponding independent possessive pronoun — i.e. his, hers, its, mine, ours, theirs, and yours.
They don’t takes an apostrophe.
They function as nouns, either with antecedents (e.g., That coffee is yours.) or without them (e.g., Put your boots where mine are.)
· The tickets are ours.
· Those books are mine.
· Take it, it is yours.
Double possessives
When an independent possessive pronoun follows the preposition of, a double possessive is formed. Although it may seem logical to use.
For Example :
· This chair of me instead of — This chair of mine.
The latter sounds more natural and is standard in English.
DEMONSTRATIVE PRONOUNS
A demonstrative pronoun points directly to the noun (antecedent) that is obvious or immediately apparent.
The four demonstrative pronouns are — this, that, these, and those.
This and these refer to objects that are close by, while that and those refer to things that are comparatively farther away.
For Example:
· This is my cat.
· These are interesting stories.
· Those birds were having webbed feet.
Note:
Demonstrative pronouns are deictic words- meaning that they cannot be understood without contextual information.
Imagine if a man you’d never met were to walk up to you and say, “That was funny, wasn’t it?” You’d probably think he either was crazy or had mistaken you for someone else.
INTERROGATIVE PRONOUNS
An interrogative pronoun is a pronoun that asks a question.
The interrogative pronoun particularly what, which, who, whom, and whose — introduce questions for which a noun is the answer.
For Example:
· Who won the match?
· What have you been doing all these days?
· Whose is that lovely grand house?
REFLEXIVE PRONOUNS
A reflexive pronoun refers back to the subject of a sentence or clause and are formed by adding -self or -selves to a personal pronoun. It is also used to give emphasis or highlight the pronoun subject.
As-myself, herself, yourself is a pronoun that follows its antecedent/subject within the same clause. The main reflexive pronouns in English are-himself, herself, oneself, myself, yourself, itself, ourselves, yourself, yourselves and themselves.
A reflexive pronoun is usually the object of an action a thing or person performs upon itself, himself, or herself.
For Example:
· I want to complete this work myself.
· You should try it yourself.
· We are preparing the food ourselves.
RELATIVE PRONOUNS
A relative pronoun introduces a relative ( i.e., a dependent clause that modifies or adds to the meaning of the noun or noun phrase).
In English, the main relative pronouns are who, which, what, and that.
For example, the relative pronouns(bold) in each of these sentences introduces a relative clause (italic):
· The man who came over had a good sense of humour.
· The house, which he had built with his own hands, was sold.
· The car that you see belongs to my uncle.
Who refers to people. Which refers to things or animals. What refers to things but not animals. That may refer to things or people.
INDEFINITE PRONOUNS
An indefinite pronoun is a pronoun whose referent is unspecified/not particular. So they refer to a noun in a general way. Indefinite pronouns such as everybody, either, none, and something, do not refer to a specific person or thing, and typically refer to an unidentified or unfamiliar person or thing.
For Example:
· Someone sent me a letter.
· Nobody wants to buy this book.
· I’ve never liked depending on others.
Each of these italicized pronouns refers either to an unspecified person or group (someone, others) or to an absence of people or things (nobody). Hence the indefinite (i.e., not defined) label.
List of indefinite pronouns
These words may be used as indefinite pronouns:
each
either
enough
everybody
everyone
everything
less
little
much
neither
nobody
no one
nothing
one
oneself
other
somebody
someone
another
anybody
anyone
anything
The indefinite pronouns listed below with an asterisk are always plural (e.g., they are),
few*
many*
both*
others*
several*
they*
The double-asterisked pronouns listed below are sometimes plural and sometimes singular (e.g., some is, some are).
all**
more**
most**
none**
any**
some**
such**
Outside these exceptions, indefinite pronouns are generally treated as singular (e.g., nobody is, everybody is instead of nobody are, everybody are), even when a pronoun’s referent is treated as plural later in the same sentence.
For Example:
· Everyone was sitting, but they weren’t eating.
· Nobody saw the driver leaving.
· I have nothing to declare except my genius. (Playwright Oscar Wilde)
There are some more Parts of Speech which we often confuse with Pronouns such as Determiners, Demonstrative Adjectives, Possessive Adjectives.
Stay tuned to learn more about them!
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