Just as nouns represent classes of objects or individual persons, places, or things, pronouns represent nouns. The English language provides you with pronouns so you don’t have to keep repeating the noun, which can become quite annoying. Most pronouns have an antecedent—a noun that the pronoun represents, as in the following example:
Sally always traveled with her dog.
Sally is the antecedent (a proper noun, by the way), and her is the pronoun that refers back to Sally. While nouns tend to change form only in the possessive (Sally’s instead of Sally), pronouns take on many forms to reflect their function. Keep reading to find out more about the different pronoun forms.
Personal pronouns represent a specific person, place, or thing. They come in two types: subjective and objective, which play different roles in a sentence.
Subjective personal pronouns:
| Singular | Plural | |
| First person | I | we |
| Second person | you | you |
| Third person | he, she, it | they |
Objective personal pronouns:
| Singular | Plural | |
| First person | me | us |
| Second person | you | you |
| Third person | him, her, it | them |
For more about how subjective and objective pronouns function in a sentence, see “Changing Case” later in this chapter.
Possessive pronouns signify ownership:
| Singular | Plural | |
| First person | my, mine | our, ours |
| Second person | your, yours | your, yours |
| Third person | his, hers, its | their, theirs |
DANGER ZONE
Although you typically show possession by adding –’s to the end of a word, its, the possessive form of it without the apostrophe before the s, is the exception. The word it’s is a contraction meaning it is.
Reflexive pronouns reflect action performed on oneself:
| Singular | Plural | |
| First person | myself | ourselves |
| Second person | yourself | yourselves |
| Third person | himself, herself, itself | themselves |
Intensive pronouns emphasize the doer of the action. They’re identical to the reflexive pronouns, but the action isn’t performed on the actor. The following two examples demonstrate the difference:
Reflexive: Sally slapped herself silly.
Intensive: Sally cooked the meal herself.
Demonstrative pronouns point things out or demonstrate them. This, that, these, and those are all demonstrative pronouns.
Relative pronouns—that, where, which, who, whom, and whose—enable you to add information about the noun you just mentioned. Here are a couple examples:
The delivery truck, which was already late, slammed into the loading dock.
This summer, we’re traveling to Bora Bora, where we vacationed three years ago.
Interrogative pronouns ask a lot of questions (five, to be precise):
- What … ?
- Which … ?
- Who … ?
- Whom … ?
- Whose … ?
Indefinite pronouns can’t make up their mind whom or what they refer to. The following lists some of the indefinite pronouns and distinguishes the singulars from the plurals and those that can go either way.
| Singular | Plural | Singular or Plural |
| another | both | all |
| anybody | few | any |
| anyone | many | more |
| anything | several | none |
| each | most | |
| either | some | |
| everybody | ||
| everyone | ||
| everything | ||
| neither | ||
| no one | ||
| nobody | ||
| nothing | ||
| one | ||
| somebody | ||
| someone | ||
| something |
Reciprocal pronouns, such as each other and one another, belong to the mutual admiration society. These pronouns are used to show that two or more entities have an equal relationship. Here are a couple examples of the reciprocal pronouns in action:
The crew members respected one another.
Family members tend to like each other.