A pronoun is often defined as a word which can be used
instead of a noun.
For example, instead of saying Robert is a student, the
pronoun “He” can be used in place of the noun “Robert” and the sentence becomes
“He is a student”.
We use pronouns very often, especially so that we do not
have to keep on repeating a noun. This
chapter is about the kind of pronoun called a personal pronoun because it often
refers to a person. Like nouns, personal
pronouns sometimes have singular and plural forms (I-we, he-they).
Personal pronouns sometimes have different forms for
masculine/male, feminine/female and neuter
(he-she-it).
Also unlike nouns, personal pronouns have different forms
depending on if they act as subjects or
objects (he-him, she-her).
A subject is a word which does an action and usually comes
before the verb, and an object is a word that receives an action and usually
comes after the verb.
For example, in the sentence Yesterday Suman called her
mother, Suman is the subject and mother is the object. The pronoun she can be used instead of Suman
and the pronoun her can be used instead of mother. The form of a personal pronoun also changes
according to what person is referred to.
Person is used here as a grammar word and means:
1st person or the self (I, me, we),
2nd person or the person spoken to (you),
3rd person or the person spoken about (he, she, him, her, they,
them).
There is also a possessive form of the pronoun. Just as we can make a noun possessive as in
the sentence That is my father's book to mean That is the book of my father, we
can make the pronounpossessive and say That book is his. There are possessive adjective forms (such as
my, your, his, her etc.) that are discussed with other adjectives in chapter 4. Possessive pronouns can stand by themselves
without nouns, but possessive adjectives, like other adjectives, are used
together with nouns.
There is also an intensive form of the pronoun which
intensifies or emphasizes the noun that it comes after as in the sentence I
myself saw him. The reflexive form of
the pronoun looks exactly like theintensive form but is used when the subject
and object of a verb refers to the same person as in the sentence I saw myself
in the mirror.
All of this may sound confusing, but if you study the chart
below, it will be clearer:
Singular
Person
|
Subject
|
Object
|
Possessive
|
Intensive
Reflexive |
1st
|
I
|
me
|
mine
|
myself
|
2nd
|
you
|
you
|
yours
|
yourself
|
3rd
|
he/she/it
|
him/her/it
|
his/hers
|
himself/herself/itself
|
Plural
|
Person
|
Subject
|
Object
|
Possessive
|
Intensive
Reflexive |
|
1st
|
we
|
us
|
ours
|
ourselves
|
|
2nd
|
you
|
you
|
yours
|
yourselves
|
|
3rd
|
they
|
them
|
theirs
|
themselves
|
Notice that
the form you is the same for subject and object, singular and plural and
that there is no neuter singular possessive form.
There are also interrogative pronouns (who, which, what) used
for asking questions and relative pronouns (who, which, what, that) used in
complex sentences which will be discussed in another place. Some grammar books also talk about
demonstrative pronouns (this, that, these, those) and indefinite pronouns (some,
all, both, each, etc.) which are very similar to adjectives and do not need to
be discussed here.