Pronouns
by Owen Fourie
A Useful Tabulation for Easy Reference
A pronoun is a word that stands in the place of a noun.
Put simply, you would not say or write,
Emma likes Emma’s car (unless there are two distinct people of the same name in the same place at the same time, but even then it will sound odd).
It would be far better to use a pronoun and say,
Emma likes her car (and let a further statement clarify the fact if it is a different Emma’s car, but ordinarily we would take this to be referring to the one and only Emma’s car).
The following tabulation is intended for your benefit as you study personal pronouns. It will also serve as a reference point for the next post in which we’ll consider pronoun-antecedent agreement.
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ENGLISH PRONOUNS First Person & Second Person including possessive pronouns and possessive adjectives (having similar forms to pronouns but serving as adjectives) |
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| Person |
First Person |
Second Person |
||
| Number | Singular | Plural | Singular | Plural |
| Gender | ||||
| Subject | I | we | you | you |
| Object | me | us | you | you |
| Possessive | mine, my | ours, our | yours, your | yours, your |
| Reflexive / Intensive | myself | ourselves | yourself | yourselves |
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ENGLISH PRONOUNS Third Person including possessive pronouns and possessive adjectives (having similar forms to pronouns but serving as adjectives) |
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| Person |
Third Person |
||||
| Number | Singular | Plural | Relative | ||
| Gender | Masculine | Feminine | Neuter | ||
| Subject | he | she | it | they | who |
| Object | him | her | it | them | whom |
| Possessive | his, his | hers, her | its, its | theirs, their | whose |
| Reflexive / Intensive | himself | herself | itself | themselves | |
In this tabulation, you can easily identify the person (first, second, or third) and the number (singular or plural) of a pronoun and how it is used (as subject, object, possessive, reflexive or intensive).
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3 comments
Hello,
I am still confused about the use of me and I.
For example, when to use “me” and when to use “I” in sentences like :
> James went with Sue and ____ to the store.
To me, it sounds like it should be me because “Sue and me” is the object. But, my fellows say that in cases like this, it should be “I” because it sounds more natural.
Would you please explain this to me.
Thank you
Author
Bram, you are quite right. It is me as part of the object of the preposition with: James went with Sue and me to the store.
If you were to change that sentence to James, Sue and ____ went to the store, you would use I as part of the subject.
To resolve the difficulty, consider what would happen if you were to remove Sue from your example:
James went with ____ to the store. Would you say, James went with I to the store? Of course not. You would use me as the object of the preposition with. The same would then apply when you add Sue back as part of the object: James went with Sue and me to the store.
Thinking that Sue and I in that position sounds more natural probably comes from years and years of being told to say So-and-so and I, and then failing to distinguish between that usage as correct in a subject position but incorrect when used as the object of a verb or the object of a preposition.
I trust that this will clarify this issue for you.
Thank you! Your explanation is very organized and easy to follow.