Understanding Pronouns in English Grammar, Diapositivas de Idioma Inglés

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Pronouns

A “PRONOUN” is essentially a replacement word for a “NOUN”; meaning that it replaces the noun to avoid repetition. Eg. Sarah has always loved fashion. Sarah announced that Sarah wants to go to fashion school. Think of them (pronoun) as the back-up quarterback doing the job of the star quarterback. The noun being “the star player” while the pronoun is the “subbed-in player” that fills in from time to time. eg. Instead, of repeating “Sarah” you can use the pronouns she and her to refer to Sarah. Sarah has always loved fashion. She announced that she wants to go to fashion school.

INTRODUCING THE VARIOUS

TYPES OF PRONOUNS:

Personal Pronouns

The most common and taught ones

SUBJECT PRONOUNS-

I/you/he/she/it/you /we/you/they

ADJECTIVE PRONOUNS

My/your/his/her/it/your/our/

their

OBJECT PRONOUNS

Me/you/him/her/it/you/us/them

POSSESIVE PRONOUNS

Mine/yours/his/hers/its/ours/yours/ theirs

When the pronoun is the object of a verb or preposition, the object form is the one you want. Most people don’t have much trouble with the objective case of personal pronouns because they usually come immediately after the verb or preposition that modifies it. Please mail it to I. Please mail it to me. Ms. Higgins caught they passing notes. Ms. Higgins caught them passing notes. Is this cake for we? Is this cake for us? If the object pronoun (him or her) sounds right, use whom. If the subject pronoun (he or she) sounds right, use who.

 Whom is trickier, though, because it usually

comes before the verb or preposition that modifies it.  Whom did you speak to earlier? A man, whom I have never seen before, was asking about you.  Whom should I say is calling? 

One way to test whether you need who or whom is

to try substituting a personal pronoun. Find the place where the personal pronoun would normally go and see whether the subject or object form makes more sense.  Who/whom did you speak to earlier? Did you speak to he/him earlier? A man, whom I have never seen before, was asking about you. Have I seen he/him before?  Whom should I say is calling? Should I say she/her is calling?

Demonstrative Pronouns  They shed light on people, things, animals and places according to their distance of being whether it’s physical or metaphorical…  This is used for singular items that are nearby. These is used for multiple items that are nearby. Eg. This is the best thing I’ve heard all day. If you think gardenias smell nice, try smelling these.  That is used for singular items that are far away. Those is used for multiple items that are far away. A house like that would be a nice place to live. Some new flavors of soda came in last week. Why don’t you try some of those?

Indefinite Pronouns  (^) To replace nouns with no real identifier. They rarely specify a “specific thing”. A few of them are: For singular: Everybody Everything Nothing None Someone Anything Anybody One Other For plural: Few Many Others Both Some Eg. Do you want anything from the store? Has anybody seen my key cars?

Interrogative Pronouns  They are used in questions.

The interrogative pronouns are who ,

what , which , and whose.

Eg.

Who wants a bag of jelly beans?

What is your name?

Which movie do you want to watch?

Whose jacket is this?

Relative Pronouns They are used to connect relative clauses to independent clauses. Often, they introduce additional information about something mentioned in the sentence. They are: what , which , who , and whom****. Who refers to people. Which and that refer to animals or things. Eg. The woman who called earlier didn’t leave a message. All the dogs that got adopted today will be loved. My car , which is nearly twenty years old, still runs well. Whether you need commas with who, which, and that depends on whether the clause is restrictive (limit or identify such nouns and cannot be removed from a sentence without changing the sentence's meaning. ) or nonrestrictive ( describes a noun in a nonessential way.)