Pronouns are words that are used to replace nouns, noun phrases, or noun clauses. They are small words that function as substitutes for nouns.
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Importance of pronouns
Pronouns in grammar are a vital tool to make your text less cumbersome and repetitive. They help to get rid of redundancy that often occurs when you use the same nouns repeatedly. Using full nouns throughout the text would put off readers and would make your piece uninteresting and monotonous. That is why we need pronouns to achieve brevity and succinctness.
Examples of pronouns
So, it’s clear that a pronoun is a word that takes the place of a noun. Before delving into the categories and types of pronouns, let us cast a glance at the commonly used words that are classified as such. I, we, me, it, they, her, him, he, she, etc. are all examples of pronouns that we regularly use in speech or writing. Why do we need these terms? Let us look at this example below.
Tom is excited to play the match. Tom is determined to win, and Tom is doing everything Tom can to ensure the team’s morale remains high. Tom’s parents are going to be present on the ground, and Tom wants to impress Tom’s parents too.
Repeating the proper noun ‘Tom‘ makes the text bland and awkward. The same goes for the noun phrase ‘Tom’s parents‘. If we replace these nouns with appropriate pronouns, then the passage would look like this –
Tom is excited to play the match. He is determined to win, and he is doing everything he can to ensure the team’s morale remains high. Tom’s parents are going to be present on the ground, and he wants to impress them too.
The pronouns are marked in bold. As you can see, using pronouns instead of the same nouns gives more clarity and paves the way for a better reading experience. There are many different types of pronouns in grammar. We have discussed them at length later on in this article.
Antecedents
We cannot discuss pronouns without referring to antecedents. What is an antecedent in grammar? The literal meaning of the word denotes something that happened or existed before or precedes another thing. In grammar, an antecedent provides meaning to a pronoun. Without an antecedent, a pronoun lacks sense. The reason for this is that a pronoun is multipurpose and covers an extensive range. It can mean anything unless clearly defined with the help of an antecedent. For example, the pronoun It can denote a raccoon, a car, an idea, a place, etc.
Therefore, an antecedent is a noun or a noun phrase that allows a pronoun to replace it later, without compromising the meaning of the sentence. An antecedent can also be another pronoun in some cases. Antecedents usually appear at the start of a sentence, but sometimes they can follow the related pronouns as well. At times, antecedents do not need to be clearly stated or mentioned as long as readers can figure out the context and understand the meaning.
Example
Let us look at a few sentences below to recognize the antecedents of the pronouns. The antecedents are marked in bold, whereas the pronouns are marked in bold and italics.
1. Raymond deliberately created the commotion as he disliked the teacher.
2. Tim and Jill always worried about each other.
Antecedents must be clearly defined or else it would make way for a faulty pronoun reference. A faulty pronoun reference occurs when a pronoun has an ambiguous or obscure antecedent that makes the sentence incoherent and sometimes illogical. Let us look at the examples below.
1. I want to get into teaching as I feel they are highly respected in our society.
As you can see, the pronoun ‘they’ refers to teachers, but the word ‘teachers’ is not present anywhere in the sentence. Therefore, the specific antecedent is missing.
2. Cathy met Rebecca as she was leaving for France the next day.
So, the question is, who is leaving for France? Here the antecedent ‘she’ can refer to either Cathy or Rebecca and thus paves the way for ambiguity and confusion.
Types of Pronouns
In grammar, pronouns are categorized into several types based on their nature and use. They are as follows:
1) Personal Pronouns
2) Possessive Pronouns
3) Demonstrative Pronouns
4) Interrogative Pronouns
5) Indefinite Pronouns
6) Relative Pronouns
7) Reciprocal Pronouns
8) Reflexive Pronouns
Let us discuss all these different types of pronouns in detail and with examples.
Personal Pronouns
One of the primary types of pronouns, the scope of personal pronouns is broad. In shorts, personal pronouns refer to people, animals, or objects, and they are the most common types of pronouns in the English language. These pronouns are classified in accordance with gender, person, number, and case and modify their forms as per their use. Thus, the different forms of pronouns are owing to the different types of each classification.
The English language has three persons: first, second, and third. It has three genders – male, female, and neuter gender, two cases – subject and object, and two numbers, which can be either singular or plural. The first-person personal pronouns include I, me, we, etc. The second-person personal pronoun is you. Here, ‘you’ is used for both singular and plural instances. The third-person personal pronouns include he, she, it, they, etc.
Example
Let us look at some examples.
Based on gender
1. She is going to be expelled from the school.
‘She’ denotes feminine gender.
2. It is not sufficient to assess the problem.
‘It’ is gender-neutral.
Based on number
Pronouns can be singular or plural.
1. Jenny ignored me at school today.
‘me’ denotes a singular character.
2. Jenny ignored them at school today.
‘them’ refers to more than one person.
Based on case
1. They are causing trouble all day.
‘They’ is the subject of the sentence. Ask the question ‘who is causing trouble all day?’ Thus, it is a subjective case where ‘they’ is the third-person subjective personal pronoun.
2. Jim is coming with us.
Here, Jim is the subject of the sentence, whereas ‘us’ is the object of the verb ‘coming’. It is an objective case where ‘us’ is the first-person plural personal pronoun.
Possessive Pronouns
Possessive pronouns are used to indicate possession or show ownership. To put it another way, they reveal what belongs to whom. Not only these pronouns are one of the most common types of pronouns, but they are also quite tricky as often they are mixed up with possessive adjectives or determiners, as many modern-day grammatists prefer to say. The confusion occurs because both possessive pronouns and adjectives take the place nouns or noun phrases. But many classify the determiners under the ambit of possessive pronouns because of the same reason. Others prefer to differentiate between the determiners and the pronouns and keep them separate. It depends on your viewpoint, but traditional grammar rules always differentiate between the two.
Mine, yours, his, hers, ours, and theirs are the pronouns while my, your, his, her, our, their, and its are determiners or adjectives. Note that ‘his’ is applicable in both cases.
Example
Let us look at these sentences and see how possessive pronouns show ownership. Try to identify the distinction with the determiners as well.
1. His proposal was better than mine.
(the pronoun ‘mine’ replaces the noun ‘proposal’)
2. Our cricket team triumphed over theirs.
(the pronoun ‘theirs’ replaces the noun phrase ‘cricket team’)
3. I did not understand her point.
(‘her’ is a determiner. It is followed by the noun ‘point’)
4. Is this your bicycle?
(‘your’ is a determiner. It is followed by the noun ‘bicycle’)
Demonstrative Pronouns
Demonstrative pronouns represent a noun or a number of nouns and show or indicate their position as far or near in both space and time. These nouns need not be specifically stated all the time. There are four such pronouns in the English language: this, that, these, those. This and that are singular in number, whereas these and those are plurals. Thus, this type of pronouns express whether something is far away or close to the speaker. This and these are used to denote objects which are close by, and that and those are used to denote objects which are far away. Here, the distance can be either literal or figurative.
Sometimes people confuse demonstrative pronouns with demonstrative adjectives because they entail the same terms. Demonstrative adjectives describe or modify a noun or a pronoun. Demonstrative pronouns stand alone and do not qualify any nouns. They only designate particular people or things and take the place of a noun instead.
Example
Let us look at some sentences below for all the four types.
1. This is not my sister’s pen.
2. That would be too risky for us.
3. Are you going to take these with you?
Interrogative Pronouns
These pronouns are used to interrogate or ask questions. These questions can be about a person, an animal, or an object. Interrogative pronouns like who, whose, and whom are used to ask questions about people, whereas what and which are used for people, animals, and objects. Note that ‘whose’ is a possessive pronoun also. We also add the suffixes ‘-ever’ and the archaic ‘-soever’ to these terms to create more such pronouns like whatever, whichever, whoever, whichsoever, whatsoever, whomever, whosoever, and whosever. The suffix forming these compound words is mainly used to create emphasis.
Be careful of the distinction between interrogative pronouns and interrogative adjectives. The latter is used to describe a noun or pronoun, while the former stands alone, even though they might look similar.
Interrogative pronouns are fairly easy to recognize and use. However, one common issue that plagues many people is the correct use of ‘who’ and ‘whom’. ‘Who’ is a subject pronoun and can only be used when it is acting as the subject of a sentence. ‘Whom’ is an object pronoun and can only be used when the pronoun is the object of a verb or a preposition in a sentence.
Examples.
1. Who is coming with me?
Here, ‘who’ is the subject of the sentence.
2. To whom did you give the envelope?
Here, ‘whom’ is the object of the preposition ‘to’ in the sentence.
Thus you can see that putting the word ‘who’ instead of ‘whom’ in the second example makes it wrong. One easy way to find out whether to use ‘who’ or ‘whom’ is to try to answer the question with another subject or object pronoun. Use the subject pronouns ‘he’ or ‘she’ and object pronouns ‘him’ or ‘her’. If the answer to the question fits ‘he’ or ‘she’, then the pronoun must be ‘who’. If the answer fits ‘him’ or ‘her’, then the pronoun must be ‘whom’.
1. Who is coming with me?
The answer is that someone is coming with me. In this question, if we replace ‘who’ with ‘he’, it fits. But if we put ‘him’, it doesn’t.
– He is coming with me
– Him is coming with me
2. To whom did you give the envelope?
The answer is that I gave the envelope to someone. If we replace ‘whom’ with ‘her’, it fits. But if we put ‘she’, it doesn’t.
– I gave the envelope to her.
– I gave the envelope to she.
Example
Let us look at a few sentences consisting of both the commonly and rarely used pronouns.
1. What do you like?
2. Whose was it?
3. Whatever are you doing?
4. Whosever will win, you reckon?
Indefinite Pronouns
Indefinite pronouns are used to refer to people or objects without specifying them. Thus, they indicate unspecified objects or people. Indefinite pronouns are ideal in situations where we want to address a group of nouns without explicitly pinpointing who or what. This type of pronoun can indicate any person or thing without providing definite information about the same.
Some common indefinite pronouns are – any, none, everyone, nobody, several, someone, everything, anything, each, etc. If any of such words like any, anyone, several, etc. precede a noun, then these become indefinite adjectives. Indefinite pronouns can also be singular or plural or even both. Let us look at the illustrative list below.
1. Singular – anybody, anyone, either, everybody, everyone, neither, nothing, someone, something
2. Plural – both, few, many, several
3. Both singular or plural – all, any, none, some, such
In the last case, these pronouns will be treated as singular if they address something singular and plural when they mean something in the plural. It depends upon the speaker or the writer’s intent.
Example
Now, we know that an indefinite pronoun does not refer to a specific person or thing. See these sentences below. Can you recognize the interrogative pronoun by yourself?
1. Someone left this note on my table.
2. Everyone came to the party.
3. Nobody cares what you like.
Relative Pronouns
Relative pronouns are used to connect two different clauses by introducing a relative clause or an adjective clause. A relative pronoun refers to the noun in the principal clause that the relative clause modifies. The principal relative pronouns are – who, whom, whose, which, and that. The relative clause introduced by this type of pronoun supplies additional information about the noun most of the time.
Usually, both ‘who’ and ‘whom’ refer to people, ‘which’ and ‘that’ indicate objects or animals, and ‘whose’ is used to denote possession.
Example
Let us look at some examples of relative pronouns.
1. The man who beat you yesterday has come to see you.
2. Dr Drake, who owns three hospitals, is sitting outside.
3. I wore the dress that you gave me on my birthday.
As you can see above, a couple of sentences have a comma before the pronoun while the other pair doesn’t. Why so? Because the use of comma depends upon whether the clause is restrictive or non-restrictive. A non-restrictive clause provides additional information and describes the noun, whereas a restrictive clause merely identifies it. The former can be omitted, and the sentence will still make sense.
Reciprocal Pronouns
Reciprocal pronouns refer to a reciprocal or a mutual relationship. We use reciprocal pronouns when two or more nouns are acting in the same way or doing the same thing to one another. There are only two reciprocal pronouns – each other and one another.
Reciprocal pronouns are used only when two or more people or things are involved. But while using the possessive form, we construe these pronouns as singular as we add an apostrophe (‘s) after the terms. We use each other when there are two persons or things involved. We use one another when there more than two persons or things involved.
Example
1. Molly and Dolly always hated each other.
2. The five boys started hitting one another.
3. They regularly assess and evaluate one another’s work.
Reflexive Pronouns
Reflexive pronouns always end in -self or -selves. We use them when the subject and object of the verb are the same. A reflexive pronoun can function as either a direct object or an indirect object of a sentence. Since they end in -self or -selves, they are easy to identify. There are nine expressions that classify as reflexive pronouns. These are – myself, yourself, himself, herself, oneself, itself, ourselves, yourselves, and themselves.
Example
It has already been mentioned that a reflexive pronoun ends in -self or -selves. It takes the place of the subject, and you don’t need to repeat the later in the sentence. Let us look at a few examples below.
1. The officials are arguing among themselves for a long time.
2. Cathy disguised herself in a man’s attire and went to the gathering to make her point.
Learn by songs
More reading
Figurative Language and 8 Most Common Uses in Creative Writing
Effective writing using precise language
Comprehensive list of adjectives for kids
BBC – What is a pronoun?
BBC – Word grammar: Pronouns
