Definition:
A word (one of the traditional parts of
speech) that takes the place of a noun, noun phrase,
or noun clause.
A pronoun can function as a subject, object, or complement in a
sentence. Unlike nouns, pronouns rarely allow modification. Pronouns are
a closed word
class in English: new members rarely enter the language.
There are several different classes of pronouns:
·
Demonstrative Pronouns
·
Indefinite
Pronouns
·
Interrogative
Pronouns
·
Intensive
Pronouns
·
Personal
Pronouns
·
Possessive
Pronouns
·
Reciprocal Pronouns
·
Reflexive
Pronouns
·
Relative
Pronouns
Examples:
·
"She got her looks
from her father. He's a plastic surgeon."
(Groucho Marx)
(Groucho Marx)
·
Chalmers: Well, Seymour, it seems we've
put together a baseball team and I was wondering, who's
on first, eh?
Skinner: Not the pronoun, but rather a player with the unlikely name of "Who" is on first.
Chalmers: Well that's just great, Seymour. We've been out here six seconds and you've already managed to blow the routine.
("Screaming Yellow Honkers," The Simpsons, 1999)
Skinner: Not the pronoun, but rather a player with the unlikely name of "Who" is on first.
Chalmers: Well that's just great, Seymour. We've been out here six seconds and you've already managed to blow the routine.
("Screaming Yellow Honkers," The Simpsons, 1999)
·
"We rolled
all over the floor, in each other's arms, like two huge
helpless children. He was naked and goatish under his robe,
and I felt suffocated as he rolled over him. We rolled
over me. They rolled over him. We rolled
over us."
(Vladimir Nabokov, Lolita)
(Vladimir Nabokov, Lolita)
·
"I used
to be with it, but then they changed what 'it' was.
Now, what I'm with isn't it, and what's 'it' seems
weird and scary to me."
(Abe in "Homerpalooza," The Simpsons)
(Abe in "Homerpalooza," The Simpsons)
·
"Why shouldn't
things be largely absurd, futile, and transitory? They are so,
and we are so, and they and we go
very well together."
(George Santayana)
(George Santayana)
·
"I am he as you are he as you are me and we are
all together."
(John Lennon and Paul McCartney, "I Am the Walrus")
(John Lennon and Paul McCartney, "I Am the Walrus")
Demonstrative Pronouns
Definition:
A determiner that
points to a particular noun or to the noun
it replaces. There are four demonstratives in English: the "near"
demonstratives this and these, and the
"far" demonstratives that and those.
A demonstrative pronoun distinguishes
its antecedent from
similar things. When a demonstrative precedes a noun, it is sometimes called
a demonstrative adjective.
Examples :
·
"In those days
spirits were brave, the stakes were high, men were real men, women were real
women and small furry creatures from Alpha Centauri were real small furry
creatures from Alpha Centauri."
(Douglas Adams, The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, 1979)
(Douglas Adams, The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, 1979)
·
"Those who
believe in telekinetics, raise my hand."
(Kurt Vonnegut)
(Kurt Vonnegut)
·
"Like other
determiner classes, the demonstrative pronoun
must replace or stand for a clearly stated antecedent. In the following
example, that does not refer to 'solar energy'; it has no
clear antecedent:
Our contractor is obviously skeptical about solar
energy. That doesn't surprise me.
Definition:
A pronoun that
refers to an unspecified person or thing. Indefinite pronouns include quantifiers (some, any,
enough, several, many, much); universals (all,
both, every, each); and partitives
(any, anyone, anybody, either, neither, no, nobody, some, someone).
Many of the indefinite pronouns can function as determiners.
Examples :
·
"For many are
called, but few are chosen."
(Bible, Matthew 22.14)
(Bible, Matthew 22.14)
·
"You can fool all the
people some of the time; you can fool some of the people all
the time; but you can't fool all the people all the time."
(Abraham Lincoln, speech at the Republican state convention in Bloomington, Indiana, on May 29, 1856)
(Abraham Lincoln, speech at the Republican state convention in Bloomington, Indiana, on May 29, 1856)
·
"No one wants to
hear about my sciatica."
(Bart Simpson, The Simpsons)
(Bart Simpson, The Simpsons)
Interrogative
Pronouns
Definition:
A
term in traditional grammar for a pronoun that
introduces a question.
The five interrogative pronouns in English are who,
whom, whose, which, and what.
Examples :
·
"Even if you do learn to speak
correct English, whomare you going to speak it to?"
(Clarence Darrow)
(Clarence Darrow)
·
"When a man tells you that he
got rich through hard work, ask him: 'Whose?'"
(Don Marquis)
(Don Marquis)
Intensive
Pronouns
Definition:
A pronoun ending
in -self or -selves that serves to emphasize
itsantecedent.
Intensive pronouns often appear as appositives after nouns or other
pronouns.
Intensive pronouns have the same forms as reflexive
pronouns. Unlike reflexive pronouns, intensive pronouns are not
essential to the basic meaning of a sentence.
Examples :
·
"He wondered, as
he had many times wondered before, whether he himself was a
lunatic."
(George Orwell, Nineteen Eighty-Four, 1948)
(George Orwell, Nineteen Eighty-Four, 1948)
·
"But it is only
through constant, faithful endeavor by the girl herself that
the goal eventually is reached."
(Florenz Ziegfeld)
(Florenz Ziegfeld)
Personal
Pronouns
Definition:
A pronoun that
refers to a particular person, group, or thing. Like all pronouns, personal
pronouns can take the place of nouns and noun phrases.
These are the personal pronouns in English:
·
First-person
singular: I (subject); me (object)
·
First-person
plural: we (subject); us (object)
·
Second-person
singular and plural: you (subject andobject)
·
Third-person
singular: he, she, it (subject); him,
her, it (object)
·
Third-person
plural: they (subject); them (object)
Note that personal pronouns inflect for case to show whether they are serving as subjects of clauses or as objects of verbs or
prepositions.
Also note that all of the personal pronouns
exceptyou have distinct forms indicating number, either singular or
plural. Only the third-person singular pronouns have distinct forms indicating gender: masculine (he,
him), feminine (she, her), and neuter (it). A personal
pronoun (such as they) that can refer to both masculine and
feminine entities is called ageneric
pronoun.
Examples :
·
"Always forgive
your enemies; nothing annoys themso much."
(Oscar Wilde)
(Oscar Wilde)
·
"From the moment I picked
up your book until I laid it down, I was
convulsed with laughter. Some day Iintend reading it."
(Groucho Marx)
(Groucho Marx)
·
"I stopped
believing in Santa Claus when my mother took me to see him in
a department store, and he asked for my autograph."
(Shirley Temple)
(Shirley Temple)
Possessive
Pronouns
Definition:
A pronoun that
can take the place of a noun phrase to
show ownership (as in "This phone is mine").
The weak possessives (also called possessive
determiners) function as adjectives in front
of nouns.
The weak possessives are my, your, his, her, its, our, and their.
In contrast, the strong (or absolute) possessive
pronouns stand on their own: mine, yours, his, hers, its,
ours, and theirs.
A possessive pronoun never takes an apostrophe.
Examples :
·
"We were both
work-study kids with University jobs. Hers was in the library; mine was
in the Commons cafeteria."
(Stephen King, Joyland. Titan Books, 2013)
(Stephen King, Joyland. Titan Books, 2013)
·
"Go on, get
inside the TARDIS. Oh, never given you a key? Keep that. Go on, that’s yours.
Quite a big moment really!"
(The Doctor to Donna in "The Poison Sky." Doctor Who, 2005)
(The Doctor to Donna in "The Poison Sky." Doctor Who, 2005)
Reciprocal Pronouns
Definition:
A pronoun that
expresses mutual action or relationship. In English the reciprocal pronouns are each
other and one another.
Some usage guides insist
that each other should be used to refer to two people or
things, and one another to more than two. (But see Examples
and Observations, below.) As Bryan Garner has observed, "Careful writers
will doubtless continue to observe the distinction, but no one else will
notice" (Garner's Modern American Usage, 2009).
Examples :
·
"Leadership and learning are
indispensable to each other."
(John F. Kennedy, in a speech prepared for delivery on the day of his assassination, November 22, 1963)
(John F. Kennedy, in a speech prepared for delivery on the day of his assassination, November 22, 1963)
·
"Men often hate each
other because they fear each other; they fear each
other because they don't know each other; they don't know each
other because they can not communicate; they can not communicate
because they are separated."
(Martin Luther King, Jr., Stride Toward Freedom: The Montgomery Story, 1958)
(Martin Luther King, Jr., Stride Toward Freedom: The Montgomery Story, 1958)
Reflexive
Pronouns
Definition:
A pronoun ending
in -self or -selves that is used as an object to refer to a
previously named noun or
pronoun in a sentence.
Reflexive pronouns usually follow verbs or prepositions.
Reflexive pronouns have the same forms as intensive
pronouns. Unlike intensive pronouns, reflexive pronouns are
essential to the meaning of a sentence.
Examples :
·
"Good breeding consists of
concealing how much we think of ourselves and how little we
think of the other person."
(Mark Twain)
(Mark Twain)
·
"Better to write for yourself and
have no public, than to write for the public and have no self."
(Cyril Connolly)
(Cyril Connolly)
Relative
Pronouns
Definition:
A pronoun that
introduces an adjective
clause (also called a relative
clause).
The standard relative
pronouns in English are which, that, who, whom, and whose. Who and whom refer
only to people. Which refers to things, qualities, and ideas--never to
people. That and whose refer to people, things, qualities, and
ideas.
Examples :
·
"One of the smaller girls did a
kind of puppet dance while her fellow clowns laughed at her. But the tall one, who was
almost a woman, said something very quietly, which I couldn't
hear."
(Maya Angelou, I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings, 1969)
(Maya Angelou, I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings, 1969)
(Maya Angelou, Mom & Me & Mom, 2013)
SUMBER :
