Pronoun: types, forms, use Flashcards
Personal Pronoun
USE:
1. Gender forms: If the situation is clear, the only gender in question is used. In literary English, masculine form is used for both sexes. For ”baby”, ”infant”, ”child”, when we do not know the sex, we can use it.
they (colloquial, informal) - he/she (very correct)
- Case Forms: subjective (I-we / you / he,she,it -they) & objective (me - us / you / him,her,it - them)
! The O case may supplant the S case:
-When not immediately followed by the Vb: They understood each other all right, Tom and her.
-In exclamations without a Vb: Come along! / Who, me?
-After as, but, than: Peter was 3 years older than Jack and I/me
Why aren’t other people as good as he/him?
The O case forms are used:
After the prepositions “but”, “except” and “like” and also other prepositions: Nobody else knew about it but me / People like us
- of some Personal Pronouns:
pronoun ”myself” preferred to the pronoun ”I” in following cases: - After a copulative vb: The Ss you ask about are Mary and myself.
- After but, than, as: All were there but myself
- In absolute constructions: The party went on, he and myself being in the rear.
- In a succession of DO: He asked Tom, Mary, myself and a few others where he could find a better deal.
- After and, like: A good friend like myself.
pronoun ”we”:
speaker + others: We (the children)…
speaker + everyone else: We live to learn
royal we: We, the Queen of England, decrete…
the person addressed, with a patronizing tone to the children and the sick: How are we this morning?
pronoun ”it”:
-to refer to sg nouns designating a thing: A chair (it) is what I want
-referring to collective nouns (both it and they): The team (it) is on the field.
-referring to ”baby” or ”child”: How old is it?
-referring to the part of a preceding clause or sentence: You are late. It is not my fault
-with certain vbs (find out, forget, know, mind, refuse, remember, etc.): He was dying and he knew it.
-without an O (to refer more vaguely to the fact mentioned): Forget it.
Anticipatory ”it” occurs in statements concerning time, distance, weather, weight, etc: It rains. It is chilly. It is late.
As S of impersonal vbs (plays the role of an indefinite pronoun): It appears. Is is said.
Demonstrative ”it”: IT + BE + PREDICATIVE (in nominative): Who is it? It is I/me.
IT + APPOSITION + GERUND/INFINITIVE: It is nice of you to come.
! ”it”, ”you”, ”we”, ”they” - may also be used as indefinite pronouns: We do not have good results in our work when we are tired.
”it” - also used as S for impersonal vbs: It happens that I know him.
Possessive Pronouns
Form: 1st pers (mine, ours), 2nd (yours), 3rd (his/her/its, theirs).
Use:
In predicative contexts: That book is yours.
In such phrases as: My best wishes to you and yours from me and mine.
In conventional ending to letters: yours sincerely, yours faithfully.
”of + possessive (pro)nouns’ ” (=double possessive/genitive): He is a friend of mine/ Mary’s. (insead of ”my friends”)
Self- pronouns
1st (myself, ourselves), 2nd (yourself, yourselves), 3rd pers (himself/herself/itself, themselves).
Use:
Reflexive use (S and O are same): He is washing himself.
Emphasizing use: He didn’t send anybody else. He himself went.
Reflexive pronoun:
-can be a DO: He shaves himself every morning
-can be a IO: You have given yourself a great deal of work.
-Part of the predicate of the vb ”to be”: You are yourself again.
-used with obligatory reflexive vb such as ”absent oneself from”, ”pride oneself on”: I pride myself on always having a tidy garden.
-used with optionally reflexive vbs (adjust (oneself), dress (oneself))
-with non-reflexive vbs: I am shaving myself.
-In a reciprocal rense: They were busy arguing among themselves.
Emphasizing pronoun:
-can go after the word it modifies: I myself would not go.
-At the end of the sentence in short sentences: I saw him do it myself.
-At the beginning of the sentence: Myself, I would not kiss her.
-Meaning: ”without help” (I traveled by myself), ”even/ not even” (Shakespeare himself never wrote a better line than that), ”not less…” (It was a portrait that Raynold himself might have painted).
Reciprocal Pronouns
Form: 2 forms: ”Each other” (used when referring to 2 persons): They greeted each other.
”One another” (when referring to more than 2 persons): The Ss of this group help one another.
Use:
used to indicate co-reference between S and Nominal Obj: We could hardly see each other in the fog.
when used with a preposition, this is placed before the reciprocal pronoun: The 2 sisters played with each other.
Demonstrative Pronouns
Forms: this-these, that-those / the former - the latter / the same / such / so / one
Use:
This-These / That-Those:
to take the place of a noun: Is this (seat) taken?
suggest the idea of position: Which will you have, this or that?
having a discourse reference: This/that is what I mean…
having a determinative reference: That which upsets me most is his manner.
emotive value: It gives you this great feeling…
idiomatic phrases: that’s the boy/girl, that’s enough
idiomatic expressions: let’s put this and that together
The Former- The Latter:
used when 2 objects or things are implied.
The same:
As a demonstrative pronoun: I did the same.
idiomatic expressions: same here, it’s all same to me, all the same.
Such:
As a demonstrative pronoun: Such is life.
idiomatic expressions: on such and such a day
“such as” = “for example”, “to be” (He gave me his help, such as it was).
So:
to stand for an affirmative statement: I’m afraid so.
To stand for a negative statement: I don’t think so.
With the vb “to do” to refer to a preceding vb: …and he did so.
to convey the meaning “also”: My husband likes French and so do I.
idiomatic expressions: Miss so and so; so, so.
One:
to stand for “people” or “I”: One can only do one’s best.
Interrogative pronoun
Form: who (whom, whose), which, what. - invariable for gender and number.
Use:
to introd. a direct question: What happened after that?
to introd. an indirect question: He asked me what had happened after that.
idiomatic expressions: What about (a cigarette)?, (It’s a) what-do-you-call-it, who was who.
Relative Pronouns
Form: who (Nominative), whom (Objective), whose (possessive), which, that, what and occasionally as and but. = connected to a noun
! The choice of a relative pronoun will be determined according to the relative clause in which it appears.
-Defining relative clauses: are necessary ideas expressed in the sentences. If left out the sentence does not make complete sense.
ex: The student who answered the question was John.
S + who, that (people) / that (things)
O + that / that
Prep. Obj + (that) preposition
Posessive + whose (people) / of which, whose (things)
! Clauses in which the relative pronoun is omitted are called contact clauses. E.g: The man (that) you spoke to…
-Non-Defining relative clauses: could be omitted and the rest of the sentence would still make perfect sense. They add additional information.
Bernard Shaw, who wrote St. Joan, died in 1950.
S + who / which
O + whom / which
PO + prep whom, whom prep. / prep which, which prep
Possessive + whose / of which, whose.
Indefinite Pronouns
person: someone/body, anyone/body, everyone/body, no one/body
object: something, anything, everything, nothing
place: somewhere, anywhere, everywhere, nowhere
manner: somehow, anyhow (similar to ”anyway”).
Each vs Every (-body, - thing, -one)
called distributives, express totality (= all).
take a vb in the SINGULAR. However, there is a tendency in spoken English to make back reference to “everybody” and “everyone” with a PLURAL form.
All
in SINGULAR: meaning of “everything”: All is well.
PLURAL: All were present at the awarding of the prizes.
Either vs Neither
both can be distributive pronouns and SINGULAR in number: neither statement is true. I don’t want either of them.
Both
indicates totality , but applied only to 2 persons or objects. Used before plural nouns and takes a PLURAL verb: I shall read both
None and No (-body, -thing, -one)
used as independent substantival pronouns.
they have singular associations and as subjects take a singular verb.
Some (-body, -thing, -one)
- Somebody and Someone are used as independent substantival pronouns (Someone will show up for this meeting) (Somebody might go).
- Impersonal Pronouns
when we wish to express general feelings and opinions, we can use ”you”, ”we” or ”they”: You can wear whatever you like to go to the theater these days.
