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 use.ivanthexplorer@yahoo.co.uk