Transcript The Magical World of Pronouns

Developed by
Ivan Seneviratne
The Magical World of Pronouns
 Personal Pronouns
 Possessive Pronouns
 Reflexive Pronouns
 Demonstrative Pronouns
 Indefinite Pronouns
 Reciprocal Pronouns
Personal Pronouns
Personal
Subject
Object
1st
Person
Singular
I
me
Plural
We
us
2nd
Person
Singular
You
you
Plural
You
you
Singular masculine
He
him
Singular feminine
She
her
Singular nonperson
It
it
Plural
They
them
3rd
Person
Possessive Pronouns
 denote possession
Person
Possessive
1st
Person
Singular
mine
Plural
ours
2nd
Person
Singular
yours
Plural
yours
Singular masculine
his
Singular feminine
hers
Singular nonperson
-
Plural
theirs
3rd
Person
Reflexive Pronouns
 refer back to the subject
Person
Reflexive
1st
Person
Singular
myself
Plural
ourselves
2nd
Person
Singular
yourself
Plural
yourselves
Singular masculine
himself
Singular feminine
herself
Singular nonperson
itself
Plural
themselves
3rd
Person
(also oneself, thyself )
Reflexive use:
Reflexive pronouns refer back to the subject.
The barber shaved himself.
Emphatic use (intensive pronouns):
A reflexive pronoun can be used for emphasis immediately
following the emphasized noun phrase .
The Queen, herself was present.
The reflexive pronoun can also be placed later in the clause
I was forced to serve the tea, myself.
Demonstrative Pronouns
SINGULAR
PLURAL
NEAR
this
these
DISTANT
that
those
 Demonstrative pronouns can often be considered as
alternatives to the pronoun it.
 That is most common in conversation, often it has a
vague reference
That’s what I thought.
 This is most frequent in academic writing.
Indefinite Pronouns
 Do not substitute specific nouns but function themselves
as nouns.
 convey the idea of all, any, none or some
 care must be taken to identify whether the pronoun is
singular or plural to assure proper conjugation of the
verb
 singular indefinite pronouns take singular verbs.
[another, anybody, anyone, anything, each, either,
everybody, everyone, everything, little, much,
neither, nobody, no one, nothing, one, other,
somebody, someone, something]
Each of the members has one vote.
 Plural indefinite pronouns take plural verbs.
[both, few, many, others]
A few of the justices were voicing their opposition.
 singular or plural: For indefinite pronouns that can be
singular or plural, it depends on what the indefinite
pronoun refer to.
[all, any, more, most, none, some]
All of the people clapped their hands.
All of the newspaper was soaked.
Reciprocal Pronouns
 convenient for combining ideas
 express an interchangeable or mutual action or
relationship
 there are two forms, each have a possessive case
each other
one another
examples:
Mark and Dave greeted each other.
Mark and his friends greeted one another.
Relative Pronouns
Relative pronouns connect a dependent clause to an
antecedent.
The man who ate got sick.
who = relative pronoun
man = antecedent (antecedents can be single
words or complete clauses)
who ate it = dependent clause
 Important to understand: who is the subject of the
dependent clause: Who ate it. It could also be the object:
He was a man whom everybody liked.
Relative Pronouns
Which relative pronoun to use?
1)
Is the antecedent a person or something else?

about a person: who, whom
The man who ate it got sick. subject
He was a man whom everybody liked. Object

about a place, thing or idea: which, that
The food which he ate looked interesting.
The food that he ate looked interesting.

Get this:
THAT and WHICH differ in use. WHICH can always be
used, with or without a comma. THAT can only be used
without a comma. So if you think you need commas,
always use WHICH.

Remember:
Only THAT is possible if the antecedent is
a) a superlative or first or only
b) all or thing
c) much or little

Warning:
What and witch are not relative pronouns.
Interrogative Pronouns
 Interrogative pronouns are for asking questions.
 Interrogative pronouns are:
who, whom, whose, what, which
Who and whom are used when talking about a person.
What is use when talking about a place, thing or idea.
 There is the question on selectivity:
What book is that?
Which book is that?
Which refers to a specific set of books, what is less
specific.
 Don’t get confused:
Like many other pronouns (relative pronouns too),
interrogative pronouns can take suffixes -ever and
-soever.
Whoever that was, he burned nicely.
This presentation is developed by Ivan Seneviratne © 2006 purely
for personal use.
[email protected]