English Grammar | Pronouns | Definition

GRAMMAR

Pronouns

Definition: 

A Pronouns is a word that takes the place of a Nouns or stands in for an unknown Nouns. The Noun that the pronouns replace is called its antecedents.

Examples:  

_ Adam surprised whether he should go to the party.

_ "Adam" is the antecedent of the pronoun "he".

There nine different types of Pronouns which we will learn about in the following lessons: personal, Possessive, Indefinite, Reflexive, Reciprocal, Intensive, Interrogative, Relative, and Demonstrative.

Rule for Pronouns and Antecedents:

A Pronouns must agree with its antecedents. Thus, if the antecedents are plural, use a Plural Pronoun; if the antecedents are feminine, use a feminine Pronoun, and so on.

Example:

Incorrect: When the officer stopped my car, they give me a traffic ticket.

Correct: When the officer stopped my car, she gave me a traffic ticket.

                 When the officer stopped my car, He gave me a traffic ticket.

Sexist: If anybody on top of things, he would realize it.

Disagreement: If anybody on top of things, they would realize it.

Rewritten: Anybody who on top of things would realize it.

General Rule:

Pronouns must always replace a Noun, the specific Noun to that Pronoun refers is called its antecedents. The antecedent of Pronoun always needs to be clearly.

Example:  Although the hamburger was cold, it tasted so good. Here, the Pronoun "it" clearly refers to the Noun "hamburger".

Problem (1): Ambiguous antecedents occurred if the Pronoun in a sentence could specific two or more of the Nouns presents.

Example:  Jon told his brother he was walking too much.

In sentence, the Pronoun "He" could refer to either "Jon" or "his brother".

The Different Pronoun Cases:

Nominative Case: (I, he, she, it, you, we, they, who).

The nominative (called subjective) case Pronoun functioning as like as the Subject of sentence, or as the Subject complement (predicate Noun).

Examples:   He came to the house.

Objective Case:

(me, him, her, it, you, us, them, whom). The objective case Pronoun functioning as like as a Indirect or Direct object, or as an of a preposition.

Examples:  I gave her a car; I sold it to them.

Possessive Case: 

(my, mine, your, yours, his, her, hers, its, our, ours, their, theirs, whose). The Possessive case Pronoun indicates possession.

Example: That is my book. That book is mine.