Personal pronouns in English
Forms
and use of Personal Pronouns
► For Interrogative pronouns see Word order in questions
Definition of a pronoun:
A pronoun is a little word that stands in place of a noun, a phrase or even a clause, in order to avoid repetition. It agrees in number and gender with the noun, phrase or clause that it replaces, which is called the antecedent. The pronoun refers to its logical antecedent in a sentence or paragraph, or in the context of dialogue. Within a sentence, the logical antecedent is most often the preceding or most recent noun.
A pronoun is a little word that stands in place of a noun, a phrase or even a clause, in order to avoid repetition. It agrees in number and gender with the noun, phrase or clause that it replaces, which is called the antecedent. The pronoun refers to its logical antecedent in a sentence or paragraph, or in the context of dialogue. Within a sentence, the logical antecedent is most often the preceding or most recent noun.
In more detail ....
1.Personal pronouns
Personal pronouns in English are fairly easy to master. However it is important to remember that for the third person singular, the choice of pronoun depends on the gender of the antecedent: he (etc.) if it refers to a man or male or unknown person, she if it refers to a female, and it for everything else.The feminine pronouns she / her / hers are only used with humans (a lady, etc.), or with a few animated or moving creatures or objects to which the English language can give a quality of femininity (examples dog, cat, boat).
The object pronoun is also used after prepositions.
♣ Do not confuse possessive pronouns (used in place of a noun) with possessive adjectives - in the final column - (which precede a noun).
Subject pronoun | Object pronoun | Possessive pronoun | Possessive adjective | |
1st person sg. | I | me | mine | my |
2nd person sg. | you | you | yours | your |
3rd person sg. | he,
she, it, one |
him,
her, it, one* |
his,
hers, its, – |
his, her, its, one's |
1st person pl. | we | us | ours | our |
2nd person pl. | you | you | yours | your |
3rd person pl. | they | them | theirs | their |
.
Examples:
Pronouns
are in bold,
their antecedents are underlined.
Possessive adjectives
are in blue.
- Look at that man. Can you see him? He's over there, and that's his wife with him.
- There are two bikes in Peter's garage; the green bike is his and the blue one is mine.
- We 've lost our way; can you help us please?
- Have you seen my phone? I can't see mine, but yours is over there.
- One should always bring a map with one, in case one loses one's way.
- I like ournew house but I don't like theirs; and I didn't like their old one either
1.1 The specific case of one
The word one causes problems not just for students, but for linguists too. Unlike other pronouns, one can be used like a noun, to replace a previously mentioned noun. In the last example given above, we find the phrase,
... and I
didn't like their old
one either
one
is not being used as a pronoun, since it is preceded by a determiner (their) and an
adjective (old).
It is not a noun either, as it has no intrinsic meaning outside of its
context. Swan, in Practical
English
Usage defines one
as a "substitute word"; others call it a "pro-form". But whaterver term
we use to describe it, one
is a special case.In examples of this type, one behaves exactly like a noun, and can be assimilated to a count noun with regard to its usage in the sentence.
1.1.1 Indefinite pronouns
There are other pronouns similar to personal pronouns, and generally used like personal pronouns; these are indefinite pronouns or impersonal pronouns: they include words such as someone, anyone, anything, whoever, and even enough or plenty or all. .Examples:
- Someone told me you're going to New York next week.
- I can't see anything
- Whoever said that was obviously not telling the truth.
- Plenty was said at the meeting, but the directors couldn't agree.
- Enough is enough
- All is not lost.
- All you need is Love.
1.1.2. Gender neutral pronouns
Sometimes we need to use a third-preson singular pronoun to refer to a person, without knowing if the person is male or female, or without wanting to specify the gender. For obvious reasons, we can't use he or she; but we can't use it either, as it is not a gender-neutral personal pronoun, but refers to an object.The classic solution in English is to use they / them / their as a singular pronoun : note however that while these pronouns can take on a singular meaning, they are still used in the normal way, as if they referred to a plural entity.
Avoid using the sometimes-used "his or her" : this is not good style, even if it is just ocasionally necessary.
Examples:
- If someone rings, tell them to call back later
- If anyone tries to open the safe, they'll get a big surprise.
- Each member of the committee gave their opinion.
1.2. The expletive pronoun there
There is known as an expletive pronoun or dummy pronoun; this means that it does not refer to a noun or antecedent that has already been mentioned; it refers to a noun object or complement that has not yet been specified. It is a third person pronoun, but can be either used as a singular or as a plural, depending on the noun to which it refers. There is normally only used with the verb be, it can be used with any tense of the verb be, including be preceded by a modal verb. Just occasionally it can be used with certain other verbs, such as go, stand or appear.Examples:
Don't confuse there
and they,
nor there
and they're.
See there, their
and they're.- There was an enormous explosion
- There are thirteen mistakes in your spelling test.
- I think that there is a hole in my bucket.
- I think that there are some people coming.
- There was a strong smell of smoke in the room.
- There will be no prizes for students who fail the exam.
- There can be no doubt that many top footballers get paid too much
- There must be a faster way than that.
- Is there any point in filling in all these long forms?
- Look ! There goes Peter.
- There appear to be three different types of fish in this pond.
- Beside the cottage there stood a very old oak tree.
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