Developed byIvan Seneviratne
The Magical World of Pronouns
Personal PronounsPossessive PronounsReflexive PronounsDemonstrative
PronounsIndefinite PronounsReciprocal Pronouns
Personal
Subject Object
1st
PersonSingular I me
Plural We us
2nd
PersonSingular You you
Plural You you
3rd
Person
Singular masculine He him
Singular feminine She her
Singular nonperson It it
Plural They them
Personal Pronouns
Possessive Pronounsdenote possession
Person Possessive
1st
PersonSingular mine
Plural ours
2nd
PersonSingular yours
Plural yours
3rd Person
Singular masculine
his
Singular feminine hers
Singular nonperson
-
Plural theirs
(also oneself, thyself)
Reflexive Pronouns
Person Reflexive
1st
PersonSingular myself
Plural ourselves
2nd
PersonSingular yourself
Plural yourselves
3rd Person
Singular masculine
himself
Singular feminine herself
Singular nonperson
itself
Plural themselves
refer back to the subject
Reflexive use:Reflexive pronouns refer back to the subject.
The barber shaved himself.
Emphatic use (intensive pronouns):A reflexive pronoun can be used for emphasis immediately following the emphasized noun phrase .
The Queen, herself was present.
The reflexive pronoun can also be placed later in the clause
I was forced to serve the tea, myself.
SINGULAR
PLURAL
NEAR this these
DISTANT that those
Demonstrative pronouns can often be considered as alternatives to the pronoun it.
That is most common in conversation, often it has a vague reference
That’s what I thought.This is most frequent in academic writing.
Demonstrative Pronouns
Do not substitute specific nouns but function themselves as nouns.
convey the idea of all, any, none or somecare must be taken to identify whether the pronoun
is singular or plural to assure proper conjugation of the verbsingular indefinite pronouns take singular verbs.
[another, anybody, anyone, anything, each, either, everybody, everyone, everything, little, much, neither, nobody, no one, nothing, one, other, somebody, someone, something]
Each of the members has one vote.
Indefinite Pronouns
Plural indefinite pronouns take plural verbs.
[both, few, many, others] A few of the justices were voicing their
opposition.
singular or plural: For indefinite pronouns that can be singular or plural, it depends on what the indefinite pronoun refer to.
[all, any, more, most, none, some]
All of the people clapped their hands.All of the newspaper was soaked.
convenient for combining ideasexpress an interchangeable or mutual action or
relationshipthere are two forms, each have a possessive case
each other one another
examples:Mark and Dave greeted each other.
Mark and his friends greeted one another.
Reciprocal Pronouns
Relative pronouns connect a dependent clause to an antecedent.
The man who ate got sick.who = relative pronounman = antecedent (antecedents can be
single words or complete clauses)
who ate it = dependent clauseImportant to understand: who is the subject of
the dependent clause: Who ate it. It could also be the object: He was a man whom everybody liked.
Relative Pronouns
Relative PronounsWhich relative pronoun to use?1) Is the antecedent a person or something else?
about a person: who, whomThe man who ate it got sick. subjectHe was a man whom everybody
liked. Object
about a place, thing or idea: which, thatThe food which he ate looked
interesting.The food that he ate looked
interesting.
Get this: THAT and WHICH differ in use. WHICH can always be used, with or without a comma. THAT can only be used without a comma. So if you think you need commas, always use WHICH.
Remember: Only THAT is possible if the antecedent is
a) a superlative or first or onlyb) all or thingc) much or little
Warning: What and witch are not relative pronouns.
Interrogative pronouns are for asking questions.
Interrogative pronouns are:
who, whom, whose, what, which
Who and whom are used when talking about a person.What is use when talking about a place, thing or idea.
There is the question on selectivity:What book is that?Which book is that?
Which refers to a specific set of books, what is lessspecific.
Interrogative Pronouns
Don’t get confused:Like many other pronouns (relative pronouns too), interrogative pronouns can take suffixes -ever and -soever.
Whoever that was, he burned nicely.
This presentation is developed by Ivan Seneviratne © 2006 purely for personal [email protected]