Pronouns

Most pronouns replace full noun phrases, and can be seen as economy devices. Personal and demonstrative pronouns, for example, serve as pointers to the neighbouring text (usually preceding text) or to the speech situation. Other pronouns have very general reference, or can be used for substitution or ellipsis. In this section, we survey the major pronoun classes: personal pronouns, reflexive pronouns, demonstrative pronouns, and indefinite pronouns.

Pronouns have a very different pattern of use from nouns.

1 Personal Pronouns

Personal pronouns have different forms according to

• number: singular, plural (e.g. / vs. we)

• person: first person, second person, third person (e.g. / v. you vs. she)

• case: nominative, accusative, possessive (e.g. / vs. me vs. mine)

• gender: masculine, feminine, neuter (e.g. he vs. she vs. it).

Personal pronouns and corresponding possessive and reflexive forms

person personal pronoun possessive reflexive pronoun

nominative accusative determiner pronoun

1st singular I me my mine myself

plural we us our ours ourselves

2nd singular you you your yours yourself

plural you you your yours yourselves

3rd

singular he him his his himself

she her her hers herself

it it its - itself

plural they them their theirs themselves

A Case forms of pronouns

The form of the personal pronoun varies according to case. Nominative personal pronouns like I, he, she are used for the subject of a clause, whereas accusative personal pronouns like me, him, and them are used for other positions in the clause, such as object. The possessive determiners (e.g. my, her) and possessive pronouns (e.g. mine, hers) are in effect the genitive case forms of personal pronouns.

B Person forms in pronouns

In spite of their name, personal pronouns may have both personal and non personal reference. /, me, you, he, she, him, her, we, and us generally refer to people, while it has non-personal reference. The plural pronouns they, them, theirs can have both personal and non-personal reference, because they is the plural of he, she and it:

1 You hear about guys beating up women and stuff and yet they love them much. <personal reference >

2 Those are great pictures, aren’t they? Did you see them? <non- personal reference>

Person in pronouns actually relates people, things, etc. to the speech situation. The three persons (first, second, third) are generally used as follows:

• First-person pronouns refer to the speaker/writer.

• Second-person pronouns refer to the addressee(s).

• Third-person pronouns refer to other people or entities, which are neither the speaker/writer nor the addressee.

1.1 Person and pronoun usage

The above definitions of the first-, second- and third-person categories are clear enough and apply to the vast majority of personal pronoun uses. However, there are some problems and special cases.

A First person: we

While the .singular pronoun / is unambiguous in referring to the speaker, the plural pronoun we/ us/ ours can vary according to context. We can be inclusive, including the addressee(s) (I + you):

What game should we play?.

It can also be exclusive, excluding the addressee(s) but including other people (e.g. I + my family):

Nancy, we love you.

The speaker can make the reference more explicit by adding other words to we:

We all believe in him,' said the 18-year-old chairwoman.’

We Americans are spoilt,' he said.