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These are pronouns that refer mostly to human beings. However, the
word 'it' does not refer to human beings, but is a Personal Pronoun.
So, we have a more grammatical way of defining Personal Pronouns so
that we can include the hapless it in the Personal Pronoun family.
A Personal Pronoun is a pronoun which belongs to any of the three
grammatical persons.
The list of pronouns which belong to this group are: I, we, you, he, she,
it, and they.
Different Functions
Depending on the function, we divide the Compound Personals into the two
types we mentioned.
Reflexive Pronouns
Intensive Pronouns
Demonstrative Pronouns
These pronouns point out someone or something. They are identical in form
toDemonstrative Adjectives/Determiners.
The difference is that...
those - The streets of Chennai are more crowded than those of Kodaikanal.
Indefinite Pronouns
These pronouns do stand for some person or thing, but we don't know for
exactly whom.
When we say, "Somebody stole my watch," we don't know to whom the
wordsomebody refers to. The word somebody is an Indefinite Pronoun.
A list of pronouns of this type are...
Distributive Pronouns
each - "From each according to his ability, to each according to his need."
Reciprocal Pronouns
These pronouns are found in pairs. They are really asubject-object pair
compressed. We'll find this if we expand the sentence in which they are
present, as in the first example below.
When one gives, the other member of the pair also gives in return. That's
what we mean by reciprocity...henceReciprocal Pronouns.
Examples:
each other - They love each other. (i.e. Each loves the other.)
Each (the subject) is used in a distributive sense; the other (the object)
automatically takes the reciprocal position. Each stands for both individuals,
one at a time.
Relative Pronouns
whose - This is Mohan, whose mobile phone was stolen last week.
These look like Relative Pronouns, but have a different function. We use them
for asking questions. There are three of them:
From this list of pronouns, I can tell you, that you will need more time to
studyPersonal Pronouns and Relative Pronouns, than any other. Their
study involves dealing with more language elements than the others.
Richard bought a new laptop three months ago. He absolutely loves it.
In the second sentence, there are two personal pronouns. The personal pronoun
"he" takes the place of "Richard" while the personal pronoun "it" takes the place
of "laptop."
In this article you can review a list of personal pronouns, as well as examples of
their various uses.
Subject Pronouns - Subject pronouns (I, You, He, She, It, They, We) replace
the name of the subject in the sentence. Example: Mrs. Yen did not come to
school yesterday. She had to go to the doctor. "Mrs. Yen" is the subject and
"she" is the subject pronoun.
Object Pronouns - Object pronouns (Me, You, Him, Her, It, Us, Them) take
the place of the object in the sentence (the noun that receives the action in
a sentence). Example: After Colleen bought a bike, it got stolen within a
week, "it" is the object pronoun used to replace "bike."
I or Me?
Another source of headache is the use of the subject pronoun "I" and the object
pronoun "me."
Example: Jennifer and I are meeting in San Francisco in July. Why not
Jennifer and me? Because "I" is part of the subject of the sentence.
Example: They gave the promotion to me. Why not I? Because "me" is the
object of the sentence.