2017-07-18 - Parts of Speech: Pronouns

Parts of Speech

• Part 1 - Introduction
• Part 2 - Nouns
• Part 3 - Verbs
• Part 4 - Pronouns
• Part 5 - Articles
• Part 6 - Adjectives
• Part 7 - Determiner
• Part 8 - Adverbs

Pronouns replace nouns which have already been introduced or can be determined from context. They are used to simplify sentences and allow us to talk about something without having to use its full name every time. For example instead of saying "The head doctor ran down the hallway and then the head doctor slid into the operating room" you can say "The head doctor ran down the hallway and then she slid into the operating room". Pronouns are special because they have a lot more forms depending on the person, number, or case of the noun they are a replacement for.

The person of a pronoun refers to the relationship between the person talking or writing and what they are referring to. First person pronouns refer to the person or thing speaking or writing (I). Second person pronouns refer to the person or thing being spoken or written to (you). Third person pronouns refer to someone or something outside the interaction (he, she, it). The number of a pronoun refers to the number of entities being referred to. Pronouns can be singular (I, you, he, she, it) or plural (we, you, they). The case of a pronoun refers to how it is used in relation to a verb. Pronouns can be used as the subject (I, you, he, she, it, we, you, they) or object (me, you, him, her, it, us, you, them) of a verb. Together these simple forms of pronouns are referred to as personal pronouns. Not because they deal exclusively with people but because they change form based on the person (First, second, third) being used.

Reflexive pronouns are used when the object is the same entity as the subject and usually end in self (myself, yourself, himself, herself, itself, ourselves, yourselves, themselves). The possessive form of a pronoun is used to indicate possession or ownership (mine, yours, his, hers, its, ours, yours, theirs).

There are also a lot more pronouns that can used in certain situations but these are good enough to start with. We may talk about the others at some point. Next time I want to talk about articles.