Difference between revisions of "Personal pronoun"

Revision as of 12:43, 9 April 2007

(This page is a detail about pronouns, a word class. The course in Word Classes forms part of the Grammar course in AWE. You may choose to follow it in a structured way by following the links. Each item can also be accessed separately.)

Personal pronouns are very direct substitutes for nouns and may be the easiest of the pronouns for a beginner to understand. They are words like 'he', 'she' and 'it'. There are personal pronouns for each person, 1st, 2nd and 3rd, and in both singular and plural forms.

Personal pronouns are one of the very few kinds of word in English which are inflected for case – that is, they come in three forms.

• One (for example 'I') is the subjective form, used for whoever is ‘doing’ the action of the verb in the sentence;
• another case, for example, 'me' is the objective form - the person to whom it is being ‘done’; and
• the third form ('my') says ‘belonging to’ (the possessive). The possessive is usually used, like an adjective, with a noun.

There is also a possessive form, used without a noun, which says ‘that belongs to me’ – the demonstrative possessive (e.g. “that’s mine”). This should not be confused with the demonstrative pronoun.

• reflexive pronouns are the form of the personal pronoun that refers back to itself, as myself is the reflexive form of I, me or mine. Reflexive pronouns add the suffix '-self' to a personal pronoun.

This guide contains a list of the personal pronouns in English, as well as a list of archaic usages, those you may see in older English.