A pronoun is any word that

A pronoun is a word that is used instead of a noun or noun phrase. Pronouns refer to either a noun that has already been mentioned or to a noun that does not need to be named specifically.

The most common pronouns are the personal pronouns, which refer to the person or people speaking or writing (first person), the person or people being spoken to (second person), or other people or things (third person). Like nouns, personal pronouns can function as either the subject of a verb or the object of a verb or preposition: «She likes him, but he loves her.» Most of the personal pronouns have different subject and object forms:

There are a number of other types of pronouns. The interrogative pronouns—particularly what, which, who, whom, and whose—introduce questions for which a noun is the answer, as in «Which do you prefer?»

Possessive pronouns refer to things or people that belong to someone. The main possessive pronouns are mine, yours, his, hers, its, ours, and theirs.

The four demonstrative pronouns—this, that, these, and those—distinguish the person or thing being referred to from other people or things; they are identical to the demonstrative adjectives.

Relative pronouns introduce a subordinate clause, a part of a sentence that includes a subject and verb but does not form a sentence by itself. The main relative pronouns are that, which, who, whom, what, and whose.

Reflexive pronouns refer back to the subject of a sentence or clause and are formed by adding -self or -selves to a personal pronoun or possessive adjective, as in myself, herself, ourselves, and itself.

Indefinite pronouns, such as everybody, either, none, and something, do not refer to a specific person or thing, and typically refer to an unidentified or unfamiliar person or thing.

The words it and there can also be used like pronouns when the rules of grammar require a subject but no noun is actually being referred to. Both are usually used at the beginning of a sentence or clause, as in «It was almost noon» and «There is some cake left.» These are sometimes referred to as expletives.

Possessive pronoun

Possessive pronouns are the pronouns that show ownership and possession in a sentence. We categorize possessive pronoun into two types: 

(1) Strong possessive pronoun

The strong possessive pronouns include yours, mine, his, hers, its, theirs, yours, and ours. They refer back to a noun or noun phrase already used, replacing it to avoid repetition: “I said that pen was mine.” Strong possessive pronouns are sometime called absolute possessive pronoun.

(2) Weak possessive pronoun.

The weak possessive pronouns include your, my, her, his, its, their, our, and, your. Their function is as a determiner in front of a noun to express whom something belongs to: “I said that’s my pen.” Sometime we call them possessive adjectives.

Indefinite Pronoun

Indefinite pronouns refer to something that in not definite in a sentence, they do not refer to particular thing or person. We use them when an object does not need to be specifically identified. There are two main types of indefinite pronoun: Singular indefinite pronoun and plural indefinite pronoun.

1. Singular Indefinite Pronoun: We use singular indefinite pronouns for the singular objects and not for plural.

Singular indefinite pronouns include: someone, somebody, something, no one, nobody, nothing, everyone, everybody, everything, anybody, another, anyone, each, anything, either, other, one, neither, and much

2. Plural Indefinite Pronoun: Plural indefinite pronouns are used for the plural objects and not for singular.

Plural indefinite pronouns include many, several, few, others, and both.

Relative Pronouns

A relative pronoun is a pronoun that relates the relative clause to another clause within a sentence. In addition, introduces the relative clause or an adjective clause. In mostly cases it acts as a subject of the relative clause. The most commonly used relative pronouns are mentioned below.

Whom, whoever, whomever, who, that, which and whose

Example in a sentence:

She does not know which pack of pencil you want.

“Which pack of pencil you want” is a relative clause, and the relative pronoun “which” has linked it to the main clause.

Intensive Pronouns

Intensive pronouns emphasize, or intensify nouns and pronouns and we define it as a pronoun that ends in self or selves. Intensive pronouns place emphasis on its antecedent by referring back to another noun or pronoun used earlier in the sentence. An intensive pronoun is approximately identical to a reflexive pronoun. Intensive pronouns are also sometimes called emphatic pronouns.

 Intensive pronouns are himself, myself, themselves, itself, herself, yourselves, ourselves, and yourself,

Example in a sentence:

I myself like to sing.

Jerry herself is her worst critic.

Demonstrative Pronouns

Demonstrative pronouns are the nouns that take place of a noun that’s already been mentioned in a sentence. Demonstrative pronouns can be singular or plural. Five main demonstrative pronouns are: these, those, such, this, that,

Example in a sentence:

These are beautiful.

Do not eat that.

Interrogative Pronouns

An interrogative pronoun often stands for something that we are not aware of yet, because we are asking about it. We use these pronouns specifically to ask questions. These pronouns are special because they all start with “Wh”, which is quite easy to remember.

Most commonly used interrogative pronouns are whose, what, whom, which, and who.

The other words like “whichever” and “whatsoever” are the words that we use as interrogative pronouns.

Words with ‘wh’ that are not interrogative pronouns. There are many other words that start with Wh but they are not interrogative pronouns. Because they are just words that start with ‘wh’ and are in questions!. “When” is not an interrogative pronoun neither is “where” nor “why”. Moreover, unlike other pronouns, sometime interrogative pronouns do not have antecedents because you are not yet sure what they really are!

Example in a sentence:

What is your nickname?

Whose pen is this?

Whatsoever do you suggest by that?

Whom were you talking with last night?

Which of these three do you like?

Sentence in which ‘wh’ words are not interrogative pronoun:

When do you have to go to gymnasium?

He doesn’t know where Ali was living last week.

Reflexive Pronouns

Reflexive pronouns and intensive pronouns are a bit complex types of pronoun and are similar, but the difference between them is that intensive pronouns are not essential to a sentence’s meaning. Meanwhile, reflexive pronouns are. In addition, they are used when the subject and the object of a sentence refer to the same person or thing. Reflexive pronouns end in -selves or -self.

Reflexive pronouns are: yourself, himself, ourselves, itself, themselves, herself, myself, yourselves.

Example in a sentence:

She told herself to spend all vacations at home.

He bought himself a new phone.

Intensive pronoun vs Reflexive pronouns

What is the difference between intensive pronouns and reflexive pronouns?

Here is easy way to differentiate an intensive pronouns and reflexive pronouns.  Just remove pronoun from the sentence; if it is an intensive pronoun, the sentence will still make sense. If the sentence no longer makes sense when the pronoun is removed, it’s a reflexive pronoun.

Reciprocal pronouns

A reciprocal pronoun is a pronoun that we use to identify a feeling or any kind of action that is reciprocated among two or more than two. That is why; it always refers to two or more than two persons. For example, Jane is laughing at Lizzy and Lizzy is laughing at Jane. So we say:

Jane and Lizzy are laughing at each other.

Each other and One another are the two reciprocal pronouns are not individual words but they are phrases. While using them, there must be two or more things, persons, or groups involved. Moreover, they all must be acting the same action. 

Some more examples are:

Paul and Jam help each other.

Both teams fought hard against each other.

Why do you laugh at each other?

All the students gave presents to one another.

 Distributive Pronouns

Distributive pronoun is a pronoun that describes a member of a group separately from the group and not collectively or including in that group. It refers to a thing or a person in a group. We use this pronoun to describe all the individual members of a particular group. Distributive pronoun are commonly used with plural noun and singular verb

Distributive pronouns that are commonly used are each, either, every, neither, none, everyone, and any.

Example in a sentence:

Each of the boys writes a poem 

Neither of the pens is black.

In this article you learned general definition of pronoun, examples of pronoun, definition of pronoun in major dictionaries, and types of pronoun.

What is a pronoun? Pronoun definition. Learn different types of pronouns in English with pronoun examples, useful grammar rules and ESL infographics.

Pronoun Definition: Pronouns are words that we use in place of Nouns (or other Pronouns) in a sentence to make it less repetitive and less awkward.

Some of the most common Pronouns are – he, she, you, they, it, etc. These Pronouns are divided into different categories based on their use: Personal Pronouns, Demonstrative Pronouns, Interrogative Pronouns, Relative Pronouns, Indefinite Pronouns, Reflexive and Intensive Pronouns, Reciprocal Pronoun.

Types of Pronouns

Personal Pronouns

What is a personal pronoun?

Personal pronouns are used for a specific object or person and they change their forms to indicate the different genders, numbers, case, and persons speaking.

We can see that the Personal Pronouns can be based on:

Gender:

Pronoun examples: He, His, Him, Her, Hers, She, Them, etc.

• He went to the market.
• She is doing the laundry.
• It is important to them.
• …

Number:

Singular Pronouns – Where the pronoun is only referring to one specific noun.

• That book belongs to me.

Plural Pronouns – Where the pronoun is used to refer to a number of nouns.

• That is their book, not yours.

Cases:

Subjective Case: She is at work.

Objective Case: He will meet us later.

Possessive Case: That is our clubhouse.

Types of Pronouns – Personal Pronouns | Infographic

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Demonstrative Pronouns

What is a demonstrative pronoun?

Demonstrative Pronouns are used to show or identify one or a number of nouns that may be far or near in distance or time. They are only four in number – This, That, These and Those.

Pronoun examples:

• That is a beautiful house.
• These were made by me.
• Everyone remembers those days.
• This is what he is charging?
• …

Types of Pronouns – Demonstrative Pronouns | Infographic

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Interrogative Pronouns

What is a interrogative pronoun?

Who, Whom, Which and What are Interrogative Pronouns as they are used to ask questions about a person or object that we do not know about. Compounds of these words are made by attaching ‘-ever’ to the words to strengthen the emphasis on the word.

Pronoun examples:

• Which one would you like?
• What is your name?
• Who will be managing the buffet?
• Whom did you tell about this?
• Whoever could have done this?
• Whichever one will you choose?
• …

Interrogative Pronouns | Infographic

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Relative Pronouns

What is a relative pronoun?

Relative Pronouns are used to join or relate two different clauses together by referring to the noun in the previous clause using the pronouns – Who, Whom, Whose, Which and That.

Pronoun examples:

• She will choose the colour which looks good on everyone.
• She is complaining to whoever she comes across nowadays.
• There is a car in the parking lot that someone has painted a bright pink.
• She needs to know by tomorrow who will be accompanying her on the trip.
• Is there anyone here whose mobile phone has a signal?
• …

Relative Pronouns | Infographic

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Indefinite Pronouns

What is an indefinite pronoun?

Indefinite pronouns are used to show unspecified objects or people, whether in plural or in singular. They are used to indicate the entire noun or some of the noun or none of the noun.

Some common indefinite nouns are – anyone, someone, none, everything, many, few, etc. For examples:

• If anyone has seen my notebook please return it to me.
• A few of the members were not satisfied with the service.
• Nobody was answering when I called them last.
• …

Indefinite Pronouns | Infographic

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Reflexive and Intensive Pronouns

Reflexive Pronouns are those which are used to indicate a noun which has been used in an earlier part of the same sentence. These pronouns are – Myself, Themselves, Yourself, Ourselves, Herself, Himself and Itself.

• Rosa was going to take it to the shop but ended up fixing it herself one afternoon.

Here, we can see that herself is being used to refer to ‘Rosa’ again at the end of the sentence.

• He prefers to be by himself after a game.

Here, himself is used to refer to ‘him’.

• Apart from ordering in, they cooked a few snack themselves.

Here themselves is used to show that ‘they’ cooked something.

• The horse hurt itself while trying to escape.

Since itself is a gender neutral pronoun, it is used to show the nouns that have no definite gender. E.g. : material things or ideas, etc.; or whose gender is unknown. E.g. : animals.

These same words are also called Intensive Pronouns, which are used to lay emphasis on the pronoun that comes before them in the sentence.

• They themselves knew that the prank was in bad taste.

Here, the pronoun themselves is used to emphasise ‘they’.

• Avoid reporting things that you yourself haven’t witnessed. 

Here yourself is used to emphasise the pronoun ‘you’.

Reciprocal Pronoun

There are just two Reciprocal Pronouns: Each other and One another. They are used when two or more nouns are doing or being the same to one another. Both of these pronouns are plural in nature as they can only be used in situations where there is more than one noun.

• Jamie and Jack always sit beside each other in break.

Here, the reciprocation is between the children as they both sit together.

• They haven’t seen one another since last year.

Here, neither of the two parties has seen each other in some time.

• The trees seem to reach towards each other in a strong wind.

Here, we have an unspecified amount of trees bending towards the others in a strong wind.

Types of Pronouns Chart

Types of Pronouns Chart | Image

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Pronoun Exercises

Pronoun Exercise 1

Pronoun Exercise 2

This article is about a word which is used instead of a noun. For other uses, see Pronoun (disambiguation).

In linguistics and grammar, a pronoun (abbreviated PRO) is a word or a group of words that one may substitute for a noun or noun phrase.

Pronouns have traditionally been regarded as one of the parts of speech, but some modern theorists would not consider them to form a single class, in view of the variety of functions they perform cross-linguistically. An example of a pronoun is «you», which can be either singular or plural. Subtypes include personal and possessive pronouns, reflexive and reciprocal pronouns, demonstrative pronouns, relative and interrogative pronouns, and indefinite pronouns.^{[1]: 1–34 [2]}

The use of pronouns often involves anaphora, where the meaning of the pronoun is dependent on an antecedent. For example, in the sentence That poor man looks as if he needs a new coat, the meaning of the pronoun he is dependent on its antecedent, that poor man.

The name of the adjective that belongs with a «pronoun» is called a «pronominal«.^[A] A pronominal is also a word or phrase that acts as a pronoun. For example, in That’s not the one I wanted, the phrase the one (containing the prop-word one) is a pronominal.^[3]

Theory[edit]

Pronoun versus pro-form[edit]

Pronoun is a category of words. A pro-form is a type of function word or expression that stands in for (expresses the same content as) another word, phrase, clause or sentence where the meaning is recoverable from the context.^[4] In English, pronouns mostly function as pro-forms, but there are pronouns that are not pro-forms and pro-forms that are not pronouns.^{[5][p. 239]}

Pronouns versus Pro-forms

	Example	Pronoun	Pro-form
1	It is a good idea.	✓	✓
2	I know the people who work there.	✓	✓
3	Who works there?	✓
4	It is raining.	✓
5	I asked her to help, and she did so right away.		✓
6	JJ and Petra helped, but the others didn’t.		✓

Examples [1 & 2] are pronouns and pro-forms. In [1], the pronoun it «stands in» for whatever was mentioned and is a good idea. In [2], the relative pronoun who stands in for «the people».

Examples [3 & 4] are pronouns but not pro-forms. In [3], the interrogative pronoun who does not stand in for anything. Similarly, in [4], it is a dummy pronoun, one that does not stand in for anything. No other word can function there with the same meaning; we do not say «the sky is raining» or «the weather is raining».

Finally, in [5 & 6], there are pro-forms that are not pronouns. In [5], did so is a verb phrase that stands in for «helped», inflected from to help stated earlier in the sentence. Similarly, in [6], others is a common noun, not a pronoun, but the others probably stands in for the names of other people involved (e.g., Sho, Alana, and Ali), all proper nouns.

Grammar[edit]

Pronouns (antōnymía) are listed as one of eight parts of speech in The Art of Grammar, a treatise on Greek grammar attributed to Dionysius Thrax and dating from the 2nd century BC. The pronoun is described there as «a part of speech substitutable for a noun and marked for a person.» Pronouns continued to be regarded as a part of speech in Latin grammar (the Latin term being pronomen, from which the English name – through Middle French – ultimately derives), and thus in the European tradition generally.

Because of the many different syntactic roles that they play, pronouns are less likely to be a single word class in more modern approaches to grammar.^[6]

Linguistics[edit]

Linguists in particular have trouble classifying pronouns in a single category, and some do not agree that pronouns substitute nouns or noun categories.^[1] Certain types of pronouns are often identical or similar in form to determiners with related meaning; some English examples are given in the table.

	Pronoun	Determiner
Possessive	ours	our freedom
Demonstrative	this	this gentleman
Indefinite	some	some frogs
Negative	none	no information
Interrogative	which	which option

This observation has led some linguists, such as Paul Postal, to regard pronouns as determiners that have had their following noun or noun phrase deleted.^[7] (Such patterning can even be claimed for certain personal pronouns; for example, we and you might be analyzed as determiners in phrases like we Brits and you tennis players.) Other linguists have taken a similar view, uniting pronouns and determiners into a single class, sometimes called «determiner-pronoun», or regarding determiners as a subclass of pronouns or vice versa. The distinction may be considered to be one of subcategorization or valency, rather like the distinction between transitive and intransitive verbs – determiners take a noun phrase complement like transitive verbs do, while pronouns do not.^[8] This is consistent with the determiner phrase viewpoint, whereby a determiner, rather than the noun that follows it, is taken to be the head of the phrase. Cross-linguistically, it seems as though pronouns share 3 distinct categories: point of view, person, and number. The breadth of each subcategory however tends to differ among languages.^[9]

Binding theory and antecedents[edit]

The use of pronouns often involves anaphora, where the meaning of the pronoun is dependent on another referential element. The referent of the pronoun is often the same as that of a preceding (or sometimes following) noun phrase, called the antecedent of the pronoun. The grammatical behavior of certain types of pronouns, and in particular their possible relationship with their antecedents, has been the focus of studies in binding, notably in the Chomskyan government and binding theory. In this binding context, reflexive and reciprocal pronouns in English (such as himself and each other) are referred to as anaphors (in a specialized restricted sense) rather than as pronominal elements. Under binding theory, specific principles apply to different sets of pronouns.

In English, reflexive and reciprocal pronouns must adhere to Principle A: an anaphor (reflexive or reciprocal, such as «each other») must be bound in its governing category (roughly, the clause). Therefore, in syntactic structure it must be lower in structure (it must have an antecedent) and have a direct relationship with its referent. This is called a C-command relationship. For instance, we see that John cut himself is grammatical, but Himself cut John is not, despite having identical arguments, since himself, the reflexive, must be lower in structure to John, its referent. Additionally, we see examples like John said that Mary cut himself are not grammatical because there is an intermediary noun, Mary, that disallows the two referents from having a direct relationship.

On the other hand, personal pronouns (such as him or them) must adhere to Principle B: a pronoun must be free (i.e., not bound) within its governing category (roughly, the clause). This means that although the pronouns can have a referent, they cannot have a direct relationship with the referent where the referent selects the pronoun. For instance, John said Mary cut him is grammatical because the two co-referents, John and him are separated structurally by Mary. This is why a sentence like John cut him where him refers to John is ungrammatical.

Binding cross-linguistically[edit]

The type of binding that applies to subsets of pronouns varies cross-linguistically. For instance, in German linguistics, pronouns can be split into two distinct categories — personal pronouns and d-pronouns. Although personal pronouns act identically to English personal pronouns (i.e. follow Principle B), d-pronouns follow yet another principle, Principle C, and function similarly to nouns in that they cannot have a direct relationship to an antecedent.^[9]

Antecedents[edit]

The following sentences give examples of particular types of pronouns used with antecedents:

• Third-person personal pronouns:
  • That poor man looks as if he needs a new coat. (the noun phrase that poor man is the antecedent of he)
  • Julia arrived yesterday. I met her at the station. (Julia is the antecedent of her)
  • When they saw us, the lions began roaring (the lions is the antecedent of they; as it comes after the pronoun it may be called a postcedent)
• Other personal pronouns in some circumstances:
  • Terry and I were hoping no one would find us. (Terry and I is the antecedent of us)
  • You and Alice can come if you like. (you and Alice is the antecedent of the second – plural – you)
• Reflexive and reciprocal pronouns:
  • Jack hurt himself. (Jack is the antecedent of himself)
  • We were teasing each other. (we is the antecedent of each other)
• Relative pronouns:
  • The woman who looked at you is my sister. (the woman is the antecedent of who)

Some other types, such as indefinite pronouns, are usually used without antecedents. Relative pronouns are used without antecedents in free relative clauses. Even third-person personal pronouns are sometimes used without antecedents («unprecursed») – this applies to special uses such as dummy pronouns and generic they, as well as cases where the referent is implied by the context.

English pronouns[edit]

English personal pronouns have a number of different syntactic contexts (Subject, Object, Possessive, Reflexive) and many features:

• person (1st, 2nd, 3rd);
• number (singular, plural);
• gender (masculine, feminine, neuter or inanimate, epicene)

Personal pronouns in standard Modern English

Person	Number & Gender	Subject	Object	Dependent possessive (determiner)	Independent possessive	Reflexive
First	Singular	I	me	my	mine	myself
Plural	we	us	our	ours	ourselves
Second	Singular	you	your	yours	yourself
Plural	yourselves
Third	Masculine	he	him	his	himself
Feminine	she	her	hers	herself
Neuter/Inanimate	it	its	itself
Epicene	they	them	their	theirs	themself
Plural	themselves

English also has other pronoun types, including demonstrative, relative, indefinite, and interrogative pronouns:

Demonstrative	Relative	Indefinite	Interrogative
this	who / whom / whose	one / one’s / oneself	who / whom / whose
these	what	something / anything / nothing (things)	what
that	which	someone / anyone / no one (people)	which
those	that	somebody / anybody / nobody (people)
former / latter

Personal and possessive[edit]

Personal[edit]

English personal pronouns^[2]: 52

Person	Number	Case
Subject	Object
First	Singular	I	me
Plural	we	us
Second	Singular	you
Plural
Third	Singular	he	him
she	her
it
they	them
Plural/Epicene	they	them

Personal pronouns may be classified by person, number, gender and case. English has three persons (first, second and third) and two numbers (singular and plural); in the third person singular there are also distinct pronoun forms for male, female and neuter gender.^{[2]: 52–53} Principal forms are shown in the adjacent table.

English personal pronouns have two cases, subject and object. Subject pronouns are used in subject position (I like to eat chips, but she does not). Object pronouns are used for the object of a verb or preposition (John likes me but not her).^{[2]: 52–53}

Other distinct forms found in some languages include:

• Second person informal and formal pronouns (the T–V distinction), like tu and vous in French. Formal second person pronouns can also signify plurality in many languages. There is no such distinction in standard modern English, though Elizabethan English marked the distinction with thou (singular informal) and you (plural or singular formal). Some dialects of English have developed informal plural second person pronouns, for instance, y’all (Southern American English) and you guys (American English).
• Inclusive and exclusive first person plural pronouns, which indicate whether or not the audience is included, that is, whether we means «you and I» or «they and I». There is no such distinction in English.
• Intensive (emphatic) pronouns, which re-emphasize a noun or pronoun that has already been mentioned. English uses the same forms as the reflexive pronouns; for example: I did it myself (contrast reflexive use, I did it to myself).
• Direct and indirect object pronouns, such as le and lui in French. English uses the same form for both; for example: Mary loves him (direct object); Mary sent him a letter (indirect object).
• Prepositional pronouns, used after a preposition. English uses ordinary object pronouns here: Mary looked at him.
• Disjunctive pronouns, used in isolation or in certain other special grammatical contexts, like moi in French. No distinct forms exist in English; for example: Who does this belong to? Me.
• Strong and weak forms of certain pronouns, found in some languages such as Polish.
• Pronoun avoidance, where personal pronouns are substituted by titles or kinship terms (particularly common in South-East Asia).

Possessive[edit]

Possessive pronouns are used to indicate possession (in a broad sense). Some occur as independent noun phrases: mine, yours, hers, ours, theirs. An example is: Those clothes are mine. Others act as a determiner and must accompany a noun: my, your, her, our, your, their, as in: I lost my wallet. (His and its can fall into either category, although its is nearly always found in the second.) Those of the second type have traditionally also been described as possessive adjectives, and in more modern terminology as possessive determiners. The term «possessive pronoun» is sometimes restricted to the first type. Both types replace possessive noun phrases. As an example, Their crusade to capture our attention could replace The advertisers’ crusade to capture our attention.^{[2]: 55–56}

Reflexive and reciprocal[edit]

Reflexive pronouns are used when a person or thing acts on itself, for example, John cut himself. In English they all end in -self or -selves and must refer to a noun phrase elsewhere in the same clause.^[2]: 55

Reciprocal pronouns refer to a reciprocal relationship (each other, one another). They must refer to a noun phrase in the same clause.^[2]: 55 An example in English is: They do not like each other. In some languages, the same forms can be used as both reflexive and reciprocal pronouns.

Demonstrative[edit]

Demonstrative pronouns (in English, this, that and their plurals these, those) often distinguish their targets by pointing or some other indication of position; for example, I’ll take these. They may also be anaphoric, depending on an earlier expression for context, for example, A kid actor would try to be all sweet, and who needs that?^[2]: 56

Indefinite[edit]

Indefinite pronouns, the largest group of pronouns, refer to one or more unspecified persons or things. One group in English includes compounds of some-, any-, every- and no- with -thing, -one and -body, for example: Anyone can do that. Another group, including many, more, both, and most, can appear alone or followed by of.^{[2]: 54–55} In addition,

• Distributive pronouns are used to refer to members of a group separately rather than collectively. (To each his own.)
• Negative pronouns indicate the non-existence of people or things. (Nobody thinks that.)
• Impersonal pronouns normally refer to a person but are not specific as to first, second or third person in the way that the personal pronouns are. (One does not clean one’s own windows.)

Relative and interrogative[edit]

Relative[edit]

Relative pronouns in English include who, whom, whose, what, which and that. They rely on an antecedent, and refer back to people or things previously mentioned: People who smoke should quit now. They are used in relative clauses.^[2]: 56 Relative pronouns can also be used as complementizers.

Interrogative[edit]

Relative pronouns can be used in an interrogative setting as interrogative pronouns. Interrogative pronouns ask which person or thing is meant. In reference to a person, one may use who (subject), whom (object) or whose (possessive); for example, Who did that? In colloquial speech, whom is generally replaced by who. English non-personal interrogative pronouns (which and what) have only one form.^{[2]: 56–57}

In English and many other languages (e.g. French and Czech), the sets of relative and interrogative pronouns are nearly identical. Compare English: Who is that? (interrogative) and I know the woman who came (relative). In some other languages, interrogative pronouns and indefinite pronouns are frequently identical; for example, Standard Chinese 什么 shénme means «what?» as well as «something» or «anything».

Archaic forms[edit]

Archaic personal pronouns^[2]: 52

Person	Number	Case
Subject	Object
Second	Singular	thou	thee
Plural	ye	you

Though the personal pronouns described above are the current English pronouns, Early Modern English (as used by Shakespeare, for example) use a slightly different set of personal pronouns, shown in the table. The difference is entirely in the second person. Though one would rarely find these older forms used in recent literature, they are nevertheless considered part of Modern English.

Kinship[edit]

In English, kin terms like «mother,» «uncle,» «cousin» are a distinct word class from pronouns; however many Australian Aboriginal languages have more elaborated systems of encoding kinship in language including special kin forms of pronouns. In Murrinh-patha, for example, when selecting a nonsingular exclusive pronoun to refer to a group, the speaker will assess whether or not the members of the group belong to a common class of gender or kinship. If all of the members of the referent group are male, the MASCULINE form will be selected; if at least one is female, the FEMININE is selected, but if all the members are in a sibling-like kinship relation, a third SIBLING form is selected.^[10] In Arabana-Wangkangurru, the speaker will use entirely different sets of pronouns depending on whether the speaker and the referent are or are not in a common moiety. See the following example:

See Australian Aboriginal kinship for more details.

Special uses[edit]

Some special uses of personal pronouns include:

• Generic you, where second person pronouns are used in an indefinite sense: You can’t buy good old-fashioned bulbs these days.
• Generic they: In China they drive on the right.
• Gender non-specific uses, where a pronoun refers to a non-specific person or a person whose gender is not specified: English usage and acceptance varies (and has varied) regarding generic he and singular they, among others.
  • A closely related usage is the singular they to refer to a person whose gender is specified as non-binary, genderqueer, or other, which has gained popularity in LGBTQ+ culture in particular.
• Vernacular usage of «yo» as a gender neutral pronoun has also been recorded among school students in Baltimore.^[12][13]
• Preferred gender pronoun selected to reflect gender identity
• Dummy pronouns (expletive pronouns), used to satisfy a grammatical requirement for a noun or pronoun, but contributing nothing to its meaning: It is raining.
• Royal we, used to refer to a single person who is a monarch: We are not amused.
• Nosism: The use of the pronoun we to refer to oneself.
• Resumptive pronouns, «intrusive» personal pronouns found (for example) in some relative clauses where a gap (trace) might be expected: This is the girl that I don’t know what she said.

See also[edit]

[edit]

In English[edit]

• Old English pronouns

In other languages[edit]

Notes[edit]

References[edit]

Further reading[edit]

External links[edit]

• English pronouns exercises, by Jennifer Frost
• «Pronoun» . New International Encyclopedia. 1905.