Pronouns

Question 1

What are pronouns?

Answer 1

They stand for (pro + noun) or refer to a noun, an individual or individuals or thing or things (the pronoun’s antecedent) Whose identity is made clear earlier in the text.
For instance, we are bewildered by writers who claim something like: “They say that eating beef is bad for you” Who are they? Cows? whom do they represent? Sloppy use of pronouns is unfair.

Question 2

What are the different forms of personal pronouns called?

Answer 2

Cases. I is subject form, me is object form, my is possessive form.

Question 3

What are the three perspectives that pronouns can be characterized and distinguished by?

Answer 3

Yes. 1st person, 2nd person, and 3rd person perspectives
1. First person refers to the speaker(s) or writer(s) (“I” for singular, “we” for plural).
2. Second person refers to the person or people being spoken or written to (“you” for both singular and plural).
3. Third person refers to the person or people being spoken or written about (“he”, “she”, and “it” for singular, “they” for plural).

Question 4

When a personal pronoun is connected by a conjunction to another noun or pronoun does its case change?

Answer 4

No.
We would write “I am taking a course in Asian history.”; if Talitha is also taking that course, we would write “Talitha and I are taking a course in Asian history.”
(Notice that Talitha gets listed before the “I” does. This is one of the few ways in which English is a “polite” language.)
The same is true when the object form is called for: “Professor Vendetti gave all her books to me.”; if Talitha also received some books, we’d write “Professor Vendetting gave all her books to Talitha and me.”

Question 5

When a pronoun and a noun are combined (which will happen with the plural first- and second-person pronouns), do you choose the case of the pronoun that would be appropriate if the noun were not there?

Answer 5

Yes.
“We students are demanding that the administration give us two hours for lunch.” “The administration has managed to put us students in a bad situation.”
With the second person, we don’t really have a problem because the subject form is the same as the object form, “you”: “You students are demanding too much.” “We expect you students to behave like adults.”

Question 6

Among the possessive pronoun forms, there is also what is called the nominative possessive, what are these possessive pronouns?

Answer 6

1. Mine
2. Yours
3. Ours
4. Theirs
   “Look at those cars. Theirs is really ugly; ours is beautiful.”
   “This new car is mine.”
   “Mine is newer than yours.”

Question 7

What are demonstrative pronouns?

Answer 7

They are pronouns that can behave either as pronouns or determiners.

Question 8

Which words are the demonstrative pronouns?

Answer 8

1. This
2. That
3. These
4. Those
5. Such

Question 9

Demonstrative pronouns do what as pronouns?

Answer 9

They identify or point to nouns.
“That is incredible!” (Referring to something you just saw)
“I will never forget this.” (referring to a recent experience.”
“Such is my belief.” (Referring to an explanation just made)

Question 10

What do demonstrative pronouns do as determiners?

Answer 10

They adjectivally modify a noun that follows. A sense of relative distance (in time and space) can be conveyed through the choice of these pronouns/determiners:
“These [pancakes sitting here now on my plate] are delicious.”
“Those [pancakes I had yesterday morning] were even better.”
“This [book in my hand] is well written.”
“That [book that I’m pointing to, over there, on the table] is trash.”

Question 11

Can a sense of emotional distance or even disdain be conveyed with demonstrative pronouns?

Answer 11

Yes.
“You’re going to wear these?”
“This is the best you can do?”
Pronouns used this way would receive special stress in a spoken sentence.

Question 12

When used as subjects, can the demonstratives, in either singular or plural form be used to refer to objects as well as persons?

Answer 12

Yes.
“This is my father.”
“This is my book.”

Question 13

Is the reference of demonstrative pronouns in other roles non-personal?

Answer 13

Yes.
When referring to students, say, we could write “Those were loitering near the entrance during the fire drill” (as long as it is perfectly clear in context what “those” refers to). But we would not write “The principal suspended those for two days.”; instead, we would have to use “those” as a determiner and write “The principal suspended those students for two days.”

Question 14

What are relative pronouns

Answer 14

They are pronouns that relate groups of words to nouns or other pronouns
“The student who studies the hardest usually does the best.” The word who connects or relates the subject, student, to the verb within the dependent clause (studies).

Question 15

What are the 4 relative pronouns

Answer 15

1. Who
2. Whoever
3. Which
4. That

Question 16

How do you know when to use the 2 relative pronouns which and that?

Answer 16

We use “which” to introduce clauses that are parenthetical in nature (i.e., that can be removed from the sentence without changing the essential meaning of the sentence). For that reason, a “which clause” is often set off with a comma or a pair of commas.

“That clauses” are usually deemed indispensable for the meaning of a sentence and are not set off with commas. The pronoun which refers to things; who (and its forms) refers to people; that usually refers to things, but it can also refer to people in a general kind of way.

Question 17

The expanded form of the relative pronouns are known as indefinite relative pronouns, what are these three relative pronouns (+ one pronoun often used as one)?

Answer 17

1. Whoever “Whoever crosses this line first will win the race.”
2. Whomever “The coach will select whomever he pleases.”
3. Whatever “He seemed to say whatever came to mind.”
4. “What” is often an indefinite relative pronoun: “She will tell you what you need to know.”

Question 18

What are the nine indefinite pronouns?

Answer 18

1. Everybody
2. Anybody
3. Somebody
4. All
5. Each
6. Every
7. Some
8. None
9. One

Question 19

What are indefinite pronouns?

Answer 19

They are pronouns that do not substitute for specific nouns, but function themselves as nouns (Everyone is wondering if any is left).

Question 20

There are other indefinite pronouns, what do they double as?

Answer 20

They double as determiners.
enough, few, fewer, less, little, many, much, several, more, most, all, both, every, each, any, either, neither, none, and some.
“Few will be chosen; fewer will finish.
“Little is expected.”

Question 21

What are Intensive Pronouns?

Answer 21

They consist of a personal pronoun plus self or selves and emphasize a noun. (I myself don’t know the answer.) It is possible (but rather unusual) for an intensive pronoun to precede the noun it refers to. (Myself, I don’t believe a word he says.)

Question 22

What are 5 Intensive pronouns?

Answer 22

1. Myself
2. Yourself
3. Herself
4. Ourselves
5. Themselves

Question 23

What are reflexive pronouns?

Answer 23

They indicate that the sentence subject also received the action of the verb (which also have the same form as intensive pronouns). (Students who cheat on this quiz are only hurting themselves. You paid yourself a million dollars? She encouraged herself to do well.) What this means is that whenever there is a reflexive pronoun in a sentence there must be a person to whom that pronoun can “reflect”. In other words, the sentence “Please hand that book to myself” would be incorrect because there is no “I” in that sentence for the “myself” to reflect to (and we would use “me” instead of “myself”). A sentence such as “I gave that book to myself for Christmas” might be silly, but it would be correct.

Question 24

You should be alert to a tendency to use reflexive pronoun forms ending in what?

Answer 24

-self. Where they are neither appropriate nor necessary. The inappropriate reflexive form has a wonderful name: The Untriggered Reflexive. “Myself” tends to sound weightier, more formal, than little ol’ me or I, so it has a way of sneaking into sentences where it doesn’t belong.
“Bob and I are responsible for this decision.” > Bob and myself are responsible for this decision.”

Question 25

When pronouns are combined with nouns of address the reflexive will take what position?

Answer 25

The first person.
“Juanita, Carlos, and I have deceived ourselves into believing in my uncle.”
or, when there is no first person, the second person:
“You and Carlos have deceived yourselves.”

Question 26

Does the indefinite pronoun “one” have a reflexive form?

Answer 26

Yes. “One must have faith in oneself.”

Question 27

It is better to do what than use the himself or herself construction?

Answer 27

Pluralize. “The people here cannot blame themselves.” > “No one here can blame himself or herself.”

Question 28

What are interrogative pronouns?

Answer 28

They are pronouns that introduce questions.

Question 29

What are the 5 interrogative pronouns?

Answer 29

1. Who/Whom/Whose (*Who will help me?)
2. Which (Which do you prefer?)
3. What (What is that?)
   Which is generally used with more specific reference than what.

Question 30

Do we use “which” or “what” for more specific references?

Answer 30

Which is generally used with more specific reference than what. If we’re taking a quiz and I ask “Which questions give you the most trouble?”, I am referring to specific questions on that quiz. If I ask “What questions give you the most trouble.” I could be asking what kind of questions on that quiz (or what kind of question, generically, in general) gives you the trouble.

Question 31

Do interrogative pronouns also act as determiners?

Answer 31

Yes.
“It doesn’t matter which beer you buy. “He doesn’t know whose car he hit.”
In this determiner role, they are sometimes called interrogative adjectives.

Question 32

Do Interrogative pronouns introduce clauses?

Answer 32

Yes. Similar to relative pronouns they introduce noun clauses, and like the relative pronouns, the interrogative pronouns play a subject role in the clauses they introduce: “We know “who” is guilty of this crime.”
“I already told the detective “what” I know about it.”

Question 33

What are the two Reciprocal Pronouns?

Answer 33

1. Each Other
2. One Another

Question 34

What do Reciprocal Pronouns do?

Answer 34

They are convenient forms for combining ideas. If Bob gave Alicia a book for Christmas and Alicia gave Bob a book for Christmas, we can say that they gave each other books (or that they gave books to each other)
“My mother and I give each other a hard time.”

Question 35

With Reciprocal Pronouns, when more than two people are involved, which do we use, “each other” or “one another”?

Answer 35

We use “one another”.
If more than two people were involved (say, a whole book club), we would say that they gave “one another” books.

Question 36

Can Reciprocal pronouns take possessive forms?

Answer 36

Yes.
“They borrowed each other’s ideas.”
“The scientists in this lab often use one another’s equipment.”