PRONOUNS

I. A pronoun is a word that takes the place of a noun. There are different kinds of
pronouns.

1. Personal Pronoun - Personal pronouns are direct substitutes for nouns. They permit
us to identify the person speaking, the person spoken to, and the person spoken about.
We also use personal pronouns to refer to things. Personal pronouns include the
following: I, me, my, mine, we, us, our, ours, you, your, yours, he, him, his, she, her,
hers, it, its, they, them, their, theirs.

Table of personal pronouns

Number Person Subject Object Possessive Possessive

Pronoun Pronoun Adjective Pronoun
1st Person I me My mine
S
I
N 2nd Person You you your yours
G
U
L 3rd Person he, she, it him, her, it his, her, its his, hers -
A
R
1st Person We us Our ours
P
L
U 2nd Person You you your yours
R
A
L 3rd Person They them their theirs

2. Relative Pronouns – The forms of relative pronouns are the same for singular and
plural, masculine and feminine.

In general, we use “who/m” for persons, “which” for things without life and animals;
“that” for both persons and things.

“Whose” (the possessive form), we use it in speaking of persons, animals and also
things without life.

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Table of relative pronouns

Antecedent Subject Object Possessive Used after a

preposition

Person who/that who(m)/that Whose Whom

Thing/object which/that which/that of which/whose Which

3. Reflexive and Emphatic Pronouns

When we add –“self” to my, your, him, her, it, one, and –“selves” to our, your, them,
we get what we call Compound Personal Pronouns. Compound Personal Pronouns are
divided into Reflexive and emphatic.

3.1 Reflexive Pronouns

We call the compound personal pronouns reflexive pronouns when the action is turned
back (reflects) upon the subject.

 I love myself. (myself refers back to the subject I)

 The horse hurt itself. (itself refers back to the subject)

3.2 Emphatic Pronouns

a) When we use compound personal pronouns simply to emphasis or clarify, we call

them Emphatic Pronouns.

 I saw the minister himself.

 The airport is very big, but the town itself is quite small.

b) To mean “without help” or “alone.

 My father built this house himself and now lives here by himself.
 I taught myself to swim.

The difference between reflexive and emphatic pronouns, then, is not their form, but in
their function in the sentence.

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Table of reflexive and emphatic pronouns
Singular (-self) Plural (-selves)

Myself Ourselves
yourself yourselves
himself, herself, itself themselves
oneself

4. Interrogative Pronouns - We use interrogative pronouns to introduce a question and

we use them without an antecedent. The interrogative pronouns are: who, whom,
whose, which, and what.

 Who are they?

 Whom do you follow?
 Whose hat is that?
 Which book do you like best?
 What did he want?

5. Demonstrative Pronouns - We use demonstrative pronouns (this, that, these,

those) to point out and identify.

Table of demonstrative pronouns

Nº Position
Near Far
Singular This That
Plural These Those

a. This is my favourite photo of my father.

b. That is the restaurant in which I was over-charged.
c. Which of these new cars do you like best?
d. Those two are always together.

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6. Indefinite Pronouns - We use indefinite pronouns to refer to a person, place, or
thing generally rather than specifically. Indefinite pronouns are less exact in meaning
than are the other pronouns.

 Somebody is at the front door.

 Everybody was there.
 Something went wrong.

The following is a partial list of indefinite pronouns:

 all, another, anybody, anyone, anything, either, everybody, everyone, everything,

few, many, much, neither, nobody, no one, none, nothing, other, several, some,
someone, somebody, something

Pronouns starting with “any”, we normally use them in questions and negative clauses.

 Has anyone seen my glasses?

 I haven’t had anything to eat all day.

After the indefinite pronouns in the box below, the verb is always singular.
 Everybody likes chocolate.

anybody, anyone, anything, everybody, everyone, everything, nothing, nobody,

someone, somebody, something, no one

7. Reciprocal Pronouns - Reciprocal pronouns indicate persons, places, or things

mutually affected by the action suggested by the verb. There are only two reciprocal
pronouns in English:
a) Each other - We use this pronoun when the reference is to only two.
 Those two persons dislike each other.
b) One another - We use this pronoun when the reference is to more than two.
 We all understand one another.
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Exercise1: Identify all the pronouns and tell their kind: personal, relative,
reflexive, emphatic, interrogative, demonstrative, indefinite, or reciprocal.
a. Is mine first, or did another win? __________
b. Everybody loses something in a war.____________
c. When a bird sings, who knows whether it is happy? ____________
d. Whom did you wish to see? ___________
e. He is a man who will certainly go far.__________
f. I saw him myself.__________
g. Several applied, but none were chosen.____________
h. They fought each other to a draw._____________
i. Is this the party whose number I dialed earlier? ___________
Exercise 2: Fill in the gaps with appropriate pronouns: reflexive or reciprocal.
a. Leticia, Paulo! Please behave_________________________.
b. The pop star_____________ attended the wedding ceremony, as she had promised.
c. We send letters to_______________ regularly. She’s, in fact, my best friend.
d. Make ________________ at home, Santos. I will be right back.
e. I made a fool of______________ by saying that stupid thing.
f. He hurt __________________ when he was playing soccer.
Exercise 3: Complete these sentences, using the pronouns that follow: her,
herself, him, himself, it, itself, me, ourselves, us, yourselves
a. While waiting for Mariana to bring _____________a banana, I saw
_____________helping_____________ to one first.
b. The taxi brings me in a lot of money. ______________ paid for__________ in its
first year. Now _____________ is earning big profits for______________.
c. After working for years without a break, she allowed ____________ a three-month
holiday. This is a picture of ____________on the beach.
d. As we set off, our mother waved goodbye to _____________________ and said,
“Take care of ___________.”
e. What shall we do with _________? We have nothing to do and no-one will
give________ any work.