Pronouns

Know what a Pronoun is; Types of Pronouns in Brief

15th July 2020 By Edify English Leave a Comment

Pronouns are one of the important parts of speech used in the English language. To learn English grammar effectively and to communicate in English without making any mistakes, it is essential to master the concepts of parts of speech, which are the basic concepts. In this article, we are going to learn What a Pronoun is and the various types and examples of pronouns.

Do You Know What a Pronoun Is?

To define a pronoun, the pronoun is a word that is used in place of a noun while writing a sentence. To avoid repetition of the same noun many times in a sentence, the pronoun replaces a noun. Some examples of pronouns are:

She
They
Our
Myself

Who
This
That
These

Types of Pronouns

There are many types of pronouns. They can be categorized into the following types:

Personal Pronouns
Possessive Pronouns
Reflexive Pronouns
Demonstrative pronouns
Relative Pronouns
Interrogative pronouns
Reciprocal pronouns
Universal Pronouns
Distributive Pronouns
Indefinite pronouns

Personal Pronouns

There are three persons in English grammar. Personal pronouns are the pronouns that speak about the three persons. They are:

First-person: that is the person who is speaking. The pronouns used are I, WE.
Second- Person: that is the person spoken to. The pronoun used is YOU.
Third-person: they are persons other than the two. The pronouns used are HE, SHE, IT, THEY.

Possessive Pronouns

Some of the personal pronouns listed above can be categorized as Possessive as they show to whom something belongs. They are:

My
Mine
Your
Yours

His
Her
Hers
Its

Their
Theirs

Reflexive Pronouns

When a pronoun consists of a reflection of the self, it is a reflexive pronoun. For example,

He hurt himself.
She herself turned up to the event.

Demonstrative Pronouns

These pronouns demonstrate and point out to the objects that are spoken in the sentence. For example,

This
These
That
Those
Such

Indefinite Pronouns

When the pronoun describes a general phenomenon and no one specific in a sentence, that is an indefinite pronoun. For example,

One
All
Some
No one
Nobody
Somebody
Any
Other
Many
Anyone
Everyone
Someone, etc.

Distributive Pronouns

Distributive pronouns describe one thing at a time in a sentence. It is important to note that the distributive pronoun is always singular. Each, either, neither are some examples of distributive pronouns.

Neither of the two was present in the class. (Were should not be used)
Either this or that option fits the schedule. (The plural ‘fit’ should not be used)

Relative pronouns

A relative pronoun is a word that is related to the noun mentioned before in the sentence. The relative pronoun also works as a conjunction in the sentence, thus acting as a link between various sentences.

He works in that room which is also like his bedroom.
The man whose bike was stolen came to the police station today.
It is the best movie that I ever watched.
I have a friend whom I treat as my teacher.

Interrogative Pronouns

Interrogative pronouns are used for asking questions in the sentences. Examples of such pronouns are

What
Who
Which
When
Where
Why, etc.

Reciprocal Pronouns

There are two reciprocal pronouns. They are Each other and One another.

Possessive Pronouns and Possessive Adjectives

1st July 2020 By Edify English Leave a Comment

Hello reader! In this chapter, let us delve into the concept of possessive pronouns and possessive adjectives, their meanings, rules, and some examples related to them. Let’s get started!

We all know that a pronoun is any word that is used instead of a noun. A possessive pronoun is a form of the pronoun that denotes ownership of something in the sentence. For example,

It is his car.
That group invited me to their party.

It is interesting to note that possessive pronouns are also similar to possessive adjectives, which describe the possessions of a noun in the sentence. For example,

That car is mine / That is my car. (The word ‘mine’ is an adjective while ‘my’ is a pronoun).

Possessive Pronouns and Possessive Adjectives

A thin line of difference exists between possessive pronouns and possessive adjectives. The following are the differences between the two for the three persons of personal pronouns.

Possessive Pronouns	Possessive Adjectives
My, Our	Mine, Ours
Your	Yours
His, Her, Its, Their	His, Hers, its, theirs

Rule: A common confusion exists while writing the possessive pronoun. That is the presence of an apostrophe (‘) and s to the pronoun while describing the possessive case. However, while writing about the possession of any pronoun, ‘s should not be used. Let us see this example.

The dress is her’s (Incorrect) /// The dress is hers (Correct).
The box is missing it’s lid (Incorrect) /// The box is missing its lid (Correct).
Is that pen your’s? (Incorrect) /// Is that pen yours? (Correct).

Difference between It’s and Its

Another area where many people make a mistake is between the use of it’s and Its. As discussed above, it’s is a contracted form of it is, and its is a possessive pronoun. For a clear explanation on this and for more examples, see this article on its vs it’s.

In the same manner,

Their = Belonging to them /// They’re = they are
Your = belonging to you /// You’re = You are
Whose = Belonging to who /// Who’s = Who is

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Personal Pronouns: Meaning, Types and Examples

30th June 2020 By Edify English Leave a Comment

Hello learners! Welcome. The concept of Personal pronouns is one of the most important concepts in the whole parts of speech. If you are a student of English grammar, this is the chapter you must master in order to easily grasp other chapters and concepts. We all know that a pronoun is a word that is used instead of a noun. There are many types of pronouns such as personal pronouns, relative pronouns, possessive pronouns, reflexive pronouns, and interrogative pronouns, etc. In this article, we are going to learn about the meaning, types, and example sentences of personal pronouns.

Personal Pronouns – Meaning and Types

Every sentence consists of two important parts. The speaker (or) the subject, the person spoken about (or) the object. These two are indicated by personal pronouns in the sentence. There are three types of personal pronouns.

The first person is the pronoun that talks about the subject/ the speaker where the self is the one included in the discussion. I and We comprise the first person.
The second person denotes the person that is spoken to. You is the example of second person.
The third person is the person that is spoken of. He, She, It, and They are the examples of the Third person.

The Nominative and the Objective Case

Every personal pronoun can be expressed in two cases, i.e., the nominative and the Objective case. We use the nominative case when the pronoun is the subject of the sentence. We use the objective case when the pronoun is the object.

The following table describes the two cases for all the personal pronouns:

Nominative Case (Singular/ Plural)	Objective Case (Singular/ Plural)
I, We	Me, Us
You, You	You.
He, She, It, They	Him, Her, It, Them

Examples of the nominative case include:

He goes for a stroll in the park every day.
They are getting ready to attend the function.
She received the honorary doctorate from the Vice-chancellor.

Some Examples of the Objective case are as follows:

The doctor advised me to rest well.
The lecturer gave us some work to do.
I asked her to give me some time to finish the project.

Multiple Pronouns and How to Use them

If more than one pronoun is involved, it is important to split the sentence into two parts and decide the correct pronoun to use. For example,

He, she, and I went shopping. (In this sentence, there are three pronouns. So, in order to use the correct pronoun form, it becomes easy if you split those sentences and determine the right form- He went shopping, she went shopping, I went shopping.

Justin went to the movies with her and me. (In this case, We cannot use she and I as the pronouns, because after splitting the sentence as- Justin went to the movies with her, Justin went to the movies with me. Hence, the objective case is used.

Some more examples of Personal Pronouns:

I gave them a letter written by her.
He asked if he could join us.
Kumar and his friends went to the pool.
It was me in the background of the photo.

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Gender Pronouns – Types and Examples

26th June 2020 By Edify English Leave a Comment

Hello reader! Welcome. In this article, we are going to discuss everything related to the concept of Gender Pronouns. This is one of the concepts that is gaining a lot of importance in the recent past, thanks to the gender-neutral pronoun concept. Before proceeding, let us first see what a Gender pronoun is.

Gender Pronouns

We all know that a Pronoun is a word that we use instead of a noun. For example, the pronoun indicates a subject which maybe I, we, You, He, She, It, and they or an object which may be my, our, us, his, hers, and them. Gender is the sex of the subject that’s being talked about. A gender pronoun is a pronoun that indicates particular sex.

In the English language, the masculine gender has the pronoun his, the feminine gender her, the neutral genders they/their/ze, zir, hir, etc. Sometimes the person decides what pronoun they choose for themselves.

Some examples of Gender Pronouns are as follows

Martina drove her car to the airport.
the team members went to their respective places.
Christine ate hir lunch at 1 PM. (Some people do not wish to be associated with any gender and those people wish to be associated with a gender-free pronoun).
My name was at the top of the list.
What are your items among these?

In English, while talking about pronouns, it is important to use the correct gender pronoun because gender is one of the things which people take seriously. Nowadays, due to the increasing awareness of the LGBTQ community and rights, it is absolutely essential to be gender-sensitive and be sensitive and respectful of the other’s gender. That is the reason for the additional number of pronouns other than he/him/his, she/her/hers and they/them/theirs. If you’re not really sure of the other person’s gender, it is important to politely ask so that the person might not feel disrespected.

Gender Pronouns of the Personal Pronouns

In the English language, there are seven personal pronouns. They are I, We, You, He, She, It, and They. These seven denote the three persons of pronouns. I and We constitute the first person, ‘You’ is the second person and he, she, it, and they are in the third person. Among these, only the third person constitutes gender pronouns. They are the following:

Feminine Singular	She, her, Hers, Herself
Masculine Singular	He, Him, his, Himself
Third-person neutral singular	It, Its, Itself
Third-person neutral plural	They, Them, Their, Theirs, Themselves

Some More Examples of Gender Pronouns

John and Claire told us that they are coming over for dinner. (Pronoun gender – neutral)
I love Barack Obama. He is my favorite leader. (Pronoun gender – masculine)
The dog is wagging its tail. (Pronoun gender – neutral)
The prime minister is doing everything at her disposal to make this happen. (Pronoun gender – feminine)
Greed is a dangerous thing and no one should be consumed by it. (Pronoun gender – neutral)

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Types of Pronoun with Definitions and Examples

4th January 2020 By Edify English Leave a Comment

Types of Pronoun with Examples

The pronoun is a word that is used in place of a noun while writing a sentence. To avoid repetition of the same noun many times in a sentence, the pronoun is used. Now let us know the various types of pronouns with examples.

Types of Pronoun

There are many types of pronouns such as the following:

Personal Pronouns
possessive Pronouns
Reflexive Pronouns
Demonstrative pronouns
Relative Pronouns
Interrogative pronouns
Reciprocal pronouns
Universal Pronouns
Distributive Pronouns
Indefinite pronouns

Types of Pronouns in detail:

Personal Pronouns

There are three persons in English grammar. Personal pronouns are the pronouns that speak about the three persons. They are:

First person- that is the person who is speaking. The pronouns used are I, WE.

Second Person- that is the person spoken to. The pronoun used is YOU.

Third person- they are persons other than the two. The pronouns used are HE, SHE, IT, THEY.

Forms of Personal Pronouns

The various forms of all the personal pronouns in the nominative, accusative, and possessive cases are described in the following table:

Case/ Person	Nominative	Accusative	Possessive
First Person	I We	Me Us	My, Mine Our, ours
Second Person	You	You	Your, Yours
Third Person	He She It They	Him Her It Them	His Her, Hers Its Their, Theirs

Reflexive Pronouns

When a pronoun consists of a reflection of the self, it is a reflexive pronoun. For example,

He hurt himself.

She herself turned up to the event.

Note: We can only use the reflexive pronoun as a reflection of the subject, but not instead of the subject.

I wanted to join the party. (Myself should not be used instead of I).

Demonstrative Pronouns

These pronouns demonstrate and point out to the objects that are spoken in the sentence. For example,

This, these, that, those, such, etc.

This is the pen you are searching for.

New York’s roads are better than those of any other city.

It is true that the USA is the richest country in the world.

Indefinite Pronouns

When the pronoun describes a general phenomenon and no one specific in a sentence, that is an indefinite pronoun. For example,

One, all, some, no one, nobody, somebody, any, other, many, anyone, everyone, someone etc.

One should be careful about one’s behavior in the class.

Distributive Pronouns

Distributive pronouns describe one thing at a time in a sentence. It is important to note that the distributive pronoun is always singular. Each, either, neither are some examples of distributive pronouns.

Neither of the two was present in the class. (Were should not be used)

Either this or that option fits the schedule. (The plural ‘fit’ should not be used)

Relative pronouns

He works in that room which is also like his bedroom.

The man whose bike was stolen came to the police station today.

It is the best movie that I ever watched.

I have a friend whom I treat as my teacher.

Interrogative Pronouns

Interrogative pronouns are used for asking questions in the sentences. Examples of such pronouns are what, who, which, when, where, why, etc.

These are the various types of pronoun. We provided more chapters and more exercises and rules about pronouns and their usage which will improve your understanding of pronouns.

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Pronouns – Definition and Classification

11th January 2019 By Edify English Leave a Comment

What are Pronouns?

Definition: Pronoun is word that substitutes the noun in a given sentence. In other words it acts as a replacement for a noun.

Classification of Pronouns:

They are classified into eight types. They are:

Personal
Possessive
Reflexive/ Intensive
Relative
Demonstrative
Indefinite
Interrogative
Reciprocal

Let us see each of them in detail.

1. Personal Pronoun:

These refer to the speaker or speakers, called first person, and include the following

I, my, mine, me, myself,

We, our, ours, us ourselves.

Those spoke to are said to be in second person and include the following

You, your, yours, yourself, yourselves

Those spoken about are said to be in the third person an include the following

He, his, him, himself,

She, her, hers, herself,

It, its, itself

They, their, theirs, them, themselves.

Impersonal Pronoun:

These substitute Nouns which are in the Neuter gender.

It, its, itself

They, their, theirs, them, themselves.

Antecedent: The noun/ Pronoun or phrase which the Pronoun is referring to is called its antecedent.

Example: The boy bought a nice flower bouquet. He gifted it to his friend. Here, boy is the antecedent for he, and flower bouquet is the antecedent for it.

2. Possessive Pronoun:

Some of the personal pronouns listed above can be categorized as Possessive as they show to whom something belongs. They are:

My, mine, your, yours, his, her, hers, its, our, ours, their and theirs.

Example: The mobile is mine. Here mine denotes to whom the mobile belongs.

3. Reflexive Pronoun:

Myself, yourself, yourselves, himself, herself, itself, ourselves and themselves are compound personal pronouns formed by combining My, your, him, her, it, our, them. with self or selves. These are called reflexive pronouns.

Example: He hurt himself while hitting the dog.

4. Relative Pronoun:

These join the dependent clause to the independent clause. They are,

Who, whose, whom which and that.

Example: He found his ring that he had lost in the gathering.

5. Demonstrative Pronoun:

These are the pronouns which point out something. They are,

This, that, these and those.

These are also called Definite Pronouns.

Example: This is my book.

Indefinite Pronoun

Any, anybody,anyone, anything, both, each, either, everybody, everything, many, neither, nobody, none, no one, one, other, others, some, somebody, someone are called Indefinite Pronouns.

6. Interrogative Pronoun:

These ask questions. They are:

Who, whom, whose, which, and what.

The compounds formed by suffixing the above pronouns with ever also belong to this category. They are: Whoever, whomever, whichever, and whatever. They can also be used as relative type and sometime they may act as adjectives as well.

Example: Whom do you wish to take with you?; Who will receive the delegates from the airport?

7. Reciprocal Pronoun:

Each other, One another are called reciprocal pronouns.

Example: They love each other.

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