Explaining Pronouns

What are pronouns? Why do we use them?

Pronouns take the place of a noun and we use them so that we don’t have to repeat a noun. This helps to simplify speech and writing by using a word to represent longer passages and ideas.

For example:

Frank and his buddy Tim went to the beach on their day off.

Instead of:

Frank and his buddy Tim went to the beach on Frank and Tim’s day off.

There are several types of pronouns. Here they all are:

Personal Pronouns

There are three classes of personal pronouns- subjective, objective, and possessive.

Subjective pronouns are those that are the subjects of a sentence. The subjective pronouns are:

Singular           I           you      he        she      it
Plural               we       they     you

I live in New York.                                 

They went on vacation to Mexico.

Objective pronouns are those that are objects in a sentence. The objective pronouns are:

Singular           me       you      him      her      it
Plural               us        them   you

Please give the toy to me.             

Why did aunt Maggie give the toy to her?

Possessive pronouns are words that indicate ownership. The possessive nouns are:

Singular            mine    yours      his       hers       its
Plural               ours    theirs      yours
The toys in the box are mine.
Those boxes are ours.

Demonstrative Pronouns

The demonstrative pronouns point out nouns, which indicate or demonstrate what is being talked about. The demonstrative pronouns are:

this        that       these       those

What is this?                  That is a coffee machine.
Do not move these?     Those are not yours.

Reflexive Pronouns

Reflexive pronouns indicate that the subject receives the action of the verb. The reflexive pronouns are:

Singular           myself             himself           herself            yourself          itself
Plural               themselves    ourselves      yourselves

Tara hit herself on the leg.
The kids shouldn’t have laughed at the silly joke, but couldn’t stop themselves.

Intensive Pronouns

The intensive pronouns are the same as the reflexive pronouns, but emphasize the nouns or pronoun they refer too. The intensive pronouns immediately follow the noun they emphasize. If an intensive pronoun is omitted, the sentence will still make sense grammatically. The intensive pronouns are:

Singular           myself             yourself          himself           herself            itself
Plural               ourselves      yourselves     themselves

He can’t do it himself.
The accountants themselves understood the importance of the tax reporting system.

Interrogative Pronouns

Interrogative pronouns introduce questions. The interrogative pronouns include:

which              what                who                 whom              whose
whoever         whatever       whichever

Which car should we buy?
Whose wallet is that?

Relative Pronouns

Relative pronouns are used to connect or relate a dependent clause to an independent clause. The relative pronouns are:

that                 which              what
who                 whose             who

The fare that I bought for the ferry ride was expensive.
Betty knows a local who can tell us about the history of this town.

Indefinite Pronouns

Indefinite pronouns are noun substitutes that are not definite in meaning. The most common indefinite pronouns are listed below. The indefinite pronouns are:

anybody    anyone        anything
everybody    everyone    everything
somebody    someone    something
nothing        Each    One    Both    Few    Many

Anyone can enter the park.
Everything is for sale.
One should never be rude to a judge.