University Sidi Mohamed Ben Abdellah S1 grammar

Faculty of Letters and human sciences Teachers: A. Fassi Fihri,

Department of English M. El Biadi, S. Madani Alaoui,
N. Bouhout

PRONOUNS
1. What is a pronoun?
A pronoun (Pr) is a word used to refer to a noun, a noun phrase, or any other structure used as a
noun equivalent. The N stands for the antecedent of the Pr e.g. Tom is our next-door neighbour;
he is from Germany.
In most cases, the Pr makes it unnecessary to repeat the N mentioned in an earlier sentence, or
understood from the context.
Other pronouns may be used in different ways: to point out to things, people or ideas (this, that
etc.) e.g. This book is interesting; to refer to indefinite people, things etc. (someone, anything
etc.) e.g. someone broke into my house yesterday.
Thus, pronouns may be classified into various types and categories. In general, they are used
with nominal functions, e.g. subject, he is a doctor, or adjectival functions, before nouns and
noun phrases e.g. his old car broke down.
2. Types of pronouns
 Personal pronouns
Personal Prs are associated primarily with a particular grammatical person. They take various
forms according to number (singular, plural), person (first, second, third), case
(possessive) and gender (masculine, feminine). Other Prs, like myself, themselves etc. can also
be included in the list of personal Prs. (see table below).
Note that there are 2 types of possessive Prs, used either as noun- equivalents (Nominal function)
or adjective- equivalents (Adjectival function).
Examples: I can lend you my car if yours is not working.
Sarah forgot her phone, so I gave her mine to make a few calls.

 Reflexive pronouns
A reflexive pronoun refers back k to a noun or pronoun (its antecedent) within the same
sentence, where the subject and object refer to the same person or thing (e.g. She cut herself,
where the subject- doer of the action- is the same as the object- receiver of the action).
Examples: The kids stayed by themselves all morning.
The cat jumped out of the window and hurt itself.
The queen herself named the ship.
(a reflexive Pr used with ‘by’ means ‘alone’; after a noun, it is used for
emphasis).

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The pronouns ‘you’, ‘they’ and ‘we’ can be used as indefinite pronouns, referring to a person in
general (not known, not specified), to make general reference in sentences where there is no
antecedent. A more formal equivalent is the indefinite pronoun one, which has a subjective form
(one), an objective form (one), a possessive form (one's) and a reflexive form (oneself). For
example, you should keep your secrets to yourself may be used in place of the more formal, one
should keep one's secrets to oneself.

subject Object possessive possessive Reflexive

Adjectives Pronouns pronouns

I Me My Mine Myself
Singular

You You Your Yours Yourself

He Him His His Himself
She Her Her Hers Herself
It It Its -------- Itself
Plural

We Us Our Ours Ourselves

You You Your Yours Yourselves
They Them Their Theirs Themselves

The pronoun ‘it’ is sometimes used to fill the place of a subject (it has no antecedent), when
it refers to one of the following:
 Time/date: It is ten o’clock, it is the second of December.
 Weather: It’s hot/cold/ raining.
 Identity: It is John.
 Emphasis: It is John who called me. If a Pr is used here, we should pay attention
to whether it stands for subject or object. E.g. subjective form: It is we who
accused them; objective form: It is us whom they accused. (notice that the relative
Pr also changes). Moreover, the subject-verb agreement must be respected in such
constructions: e.g. It is you who are responsible, but not *it is you who is
responsible, which is common and somewhat acceptable in informal language.
‘It’ is identified as an ‘empty subject’, especially when the subject is moved to another
position in the sentence: e.g. we would say it is quite common nowadays to see couples dress
alike, instead of to see couples dress alike is quite common nowadays.
Another related pronoun, used as object, is the reciprocal pronoun, each other, used for mutual
reference, e.g. They love each other, the old couple care for each other. The Pr ‘one another’ is
used instead when more than two members are involved, e.g. All the passengers were looking
strangely at one another.

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  Demonstrative pronouns:
Demonstrative Prs are usually used before nouns and noun phrases, with an adjectival function;
hence, they are included and will be dealt with as determiners. They have both a singular and a
plural form: this/these, that/those and may indicate a distance distinction: this/that, these/those.
Examples: This book must be put on that shelf over there.
These toys belong to those kids, who are playing in the backyard.

 Interrogative pronouns:
Interrogative pronouns, what, which, who, whom, when, where, whose, why and how, (also called
interrogative words, question words or wh-words) are considered as function words, used to
introduce wh-questions. They may be used in both direct questions (Where have you been?)
and in indirect questions (I wonder where you have been). In English, The same forms are also
used as relative pronouns in relative clauses (I still remember the day when we first met ) and as
subordinate conjunctions in adverbial clauses (stay where you are!). The wh-word used in a
question tells us about the information sought, or wanted.
Examples:
Who are you? (person)
What are you doing? (thing, activity etc.)
When are you leaving? (time)
where are you going? (place)
How did you do it? (manner)

 Relative pronouns:
A relative Pr is a word that is used to introduce relative (adjective) clauses in complex
sentences (to be studied in S3 grammar). In simple terms, a relative clause is a sentence that
contains modifying information about a noun or noun phrase (also pronouns and determiners)
previously mentioned (antecedent), e.g. Have you read the book that/which I gave you last week?
Since the relative Pr replaces a noun in the relative clause, the choice of the Pr depends on the
type of N and its function in the original sentence.
Examples:
This is the officer who interviewed the new recruit
(who replaces a person used as subject).
This is the new recruit whom the officer interviewed.
(whom replaces a person used as object)
When the antecedent has an adverbial meaning (time, place etc.), a relative adverb is used,
e.g. This is the house where my grandfather was born.

We can summarize the different uses of relative pronouns and adverbs in the following table:

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 Relative
Usage Examples
Prs
The man who called you yesterday is a human- rights
who subject/object (people)
activist.
subject/object (not My friend’s car, which was parked on a hill, slowly
which
people) rolled down the street.
The woman whose husband passed out called an
whose possession (all)
ambulance.
object (people)
The man whom we talked to (or, to whom we talked)
whom
on the bus was a retired army officer.

The car crashed into a traffic sign that stood on the

subject/object (all)
street.
That
I had never met the man that you introduced to me
(replaces who/which)
yesterday.
Where Place This is the motel where the dead body was found.
When Time Peter got married in 1990, when his father died.
Why Reason Do you know the reason why all the shops are closed?

 Indefinite pronouns:

While most of the above Prs have a clear reference, Indefinite pronouns, such as
something/somebody, anything/anybody, everything/everybody and nothing/nobody are used to
refer to unknown, unspecified persons and things (no antecedent). In other words, we use these
Prs to speak generally about something rather than mentioning a specific person, place or thing.

We can classify Indefinite pronouns into three categories and forms:

 some- compounds (someone, somebody, something) are used in affirmative sentences,

e.g. I asked somebody to help me.
 any-compounds (anyone, anybody, anything) are used when the verb is negative, e.g. I
don’t need anything.
 no-compounds (no one, nobody, nothing) are used in negative sentences when the verb
has an affirmative form, e.g. I need nothing.

Note that the use of no-compounds with a negative verb results in double negation, which is
wrong in English, * I don’t need nothing, *we didn’t meet no one (the use of * before a sentence
means that it is a deviant, wrong sentence)
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2. Usage of Indefinite pronouns

Things or People
To refer to things, we use the indefinite pronouns that end in -thing.
Example: everything, something, anything, nothing
For people, we use the indefinite pronouns that end in -body or -one.
Example: everybody/everyone, somebody/someone, anybody/anyone, nobody/no one

Difference between every-, some-, any-, no-

indefinite pronoun usage examples

everything every individual in a group, Everything looks different.

everybody/everyone all together It seems that everyone has
disappeared.

something an unspecified person or thing I would really like to

somebody/someone ask someone.
I think I heard something.

anything one random person of a group, I am sure anyone could help

anybody/anyone one random thing
in negative sentences,
in the sense of nothing/nobody
me to get back to the city
centre.
I would do anything to get back
to the city centre.
But there isn’t anyone here I
could ask.

in questions, whether there is Is there anyone there?

something/something

nothing not one single thing or person Nothing looks familiar. There
nobody/no one is nobody in the street.

Instead of nothing/nobody/no one we can also use not anything/anybody/anyone.

Examples:
Nothing looks familiar.
I don’t see anything that looks familiar.

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 There is nobody here I could ask.
There isn’t anyone here I could ask.

Everything/everybody or anything/anybody

For foreign learners of English it is sometimes difficult to know whether to use any- or every-.

If we are referring to any person or thing from a group, we need to use any-. To help us
remember this rule, we can imagine various people or things and put an or in between them.

Examples:
Anyone could help me: the man or the woman or the child or the old lady.
I will do anything if you help me: I will give you money or I will help you do the
washing up or I will go to the cinema with you.

However, if we truly mean every single individual or the entire group together, we have to
use every-. To help us remember this rule, we can imagine various people or things and put
an and in between them.

Examples:

Everyone has disappeared: the man and the woman and the child and the old lady.
I will do everything if you help me: I will give you money and I will help you do the
washing up and I will go to the cinema with you.
Indefinite pronouns + they

The indefinite pronouns that end in -body/-one indicate a person. If we replace these pronouns
with personal or possessive pronouns, we use the third person plural.

Examples:
I would really like to ask someone if they knew the way.
Everybody should know their way home.

However, the indefinite pronouns that end in -thing do not refer to people and are therefore
replaced with the pronoun it.

Example: Nothing looks the way it used to.