Grammar: What is pronoun ?
Pronoun
A pronoun is used in the place of a noun or phrase. Or Pronouns are words that substitute a noun or another pronoun.
Examples - I, you, he, she, it, who, themselves.
- This House belongs to us.
- I won the race.
- The matter is between Olivia and me.
Types of pronouns
1- Subject Pronouns (I, you, he, she, it, we, and they)
2- Object Pronouns (Me, you, him, her, it, us, and them)
3- Reflexive Pronouns (Myself, yourself, himself, herself, itself, ourselves, themselves)
4- Possessive Pronouns (Mine, yours, his, hers, ours, theirs)
5- Demonstrative Pronouns (This, that, those, these)
6- Relative Pronouns (Who, which, that, whose)
- Subject Pronouns - Subject pronouns are used as grammatical subjects in a sentence. A subject pronoun does the action of the sentence instead of receiving the action, as an object/objective pronoun does.
Subject pronouns are used to replace the subject (person or thing) of a verb.
We do NOT normally say:
Olivia is tall and Olivia is intelligent.
Saying the word "Olivia" twice is repetitive and does not sound natural.
We replace the Subject (Olivia) that appears the second time with a subject pronoun to avoid repetition (and in this case to avoid saying the name Olivia again.)
So we would say:
Olivia is tall and she is intelligent.
We replace the second "Olivia" with the Subject Pronoun "She".
Examples – (I, you, he, she, it, we, and they)
- I am from United States of America.
- My friends and I are having a great time!
- The time is seven o'clock.
- Object Pronouns - Object pronouns are used as grammatical objects in the sentence: the direct or indirect object of a verb or the object of a preposition. An object pronoun receives the action instead of doing the action itself. They are contrasted with subject/subjective pronouns.
Examples – (Me, you, him, her, it, us, and them)
- I like you but you don't like me.
- He loves sitting next to her.
- She always writes e-mails to us.
- Reflexive Pronouns - Reflexive pronouns are used when the subject and the object in a sentence are the same person.
Examples – (Myself, yourself, himself, herself, itself, ourselves, themselves)
- She looked at herself in the mirror.
- He injured himself during the game.
- Emma herself cooked dinner, not her mother.
- Possessive Pronouns - A possessive pronoun is a word that replaces a noun (or a noun phrase) in a sentence and shows ownership. The possessive pronouns are mine, yours, his, hers, ours, and theirs.
Examples – (Mine, yours, his, hers, ours, theirs)
- This car is bigger than mine.
- No, it's yours.
- Oliver found his clothes but Emma couldn't find hers.
- Demonstrative Pronouns - Demonstrative pronouns are those that identify or point to a thing or things and occasionally persons. They can be both singular and plural and they refer to nouns that are either nearby or far away in time or space.
Examples – (This, that, those, these)
- This is her car, and (further away) is mine.
- These are my shoes.
- That is incorrect.
- Relative Pronouns - Relative pronouns introduce a relative clause - either as a subject (who, which, that), or as a direct object (whom, which, that), or in the context of a prepositional phrase (to whom, with which, by which, etc). They are called "relative" because in a declarative sentence, they relate to a noun that has normally just been mentioned.
Examples – (Who, which, that, whose)
- Her new laptop, which she bought last week, is very expensive.
- The girl whom he met last week is very nice.
- This is the woman who sold me a stolen mobile phone
