The Eight Parts of Speech: Pronouns

Pronouns are words that take the place of a noun or reflect back towards a noun.

The word that the pronoun replaces (or the noun that it refers to) is called the antecedent. A common mistake is to use a pronoun that doesn't have a clear reference (without a clear antecedent). An example is, “It is cold.” We may follow up with, “What is the thing that's cold?”, “The wind,” So we might as well have begun with, “The wind is cold.”

There are six types of pronouns

1. Personal Pronouns – These are the common pronouns.
2. Possessive Pronouns – These are pronouns that convey ownership
3. Intensive/Reflexive Pronouns – Intensive and Reflexive pronouns are words that end in -self or -selves. The difference is where they are placed within a sentence and what is their job. An Intensive Pronoun is a word that follows the “I” in a sentence and is used to intensify the “I”. [I myself bought the book].A reflexive pronoun is a word that replaces the 'I' in a sentence. [I bought the book myself.] Please note two things. First, never use -self words in any other way. Use me. Second, do not begin a sentence with a reflexive or intensive pronoun.
4. Relative Pronouns – Are used to introduce adjective clauses (See Adjectives for More Information). They are the same words that are used by interrogative pronouns however, they do not ask questions.
5. Interrogative Pronouns – Are used to ask questions. Who, What, Whom, Which, Whose
6. Demonstrative Pronouns – These are pronouns that point to things. This, that, these, those
7. Indefinite Pronouns – Are words that don't elicit particular things. For example someone, somebody, anyone, nobody, ect. The difficulty with these words are knowing which are singular and which are plural so that you may know which verb form to use.
8. Reciprocal Pronouns – These pronouns refer to specific parts of a plural noun.

Here are some examples of the above pronouns.

1. Personal Pronouns – They always function as noun equivalents
   
   Singular: I, me, you, she, her, he him, itPlural: We, us, you, they, them

2. Possessive Pronouns – Indicate Ownership
   
   Singular: My, mine, your, yours, her, hers, his, itsPlural: Our, ours, your, yours, their, theirs

**Some of these can also function as pronoun adjectives

3. Intensive and Reflexive Pronouns – Emphasize another noun or another pronoun
   
   Singular: Myself, yourself, himself, herself, itself
   Plural: Ourselves, yourselves, themselves
4. Relative Pronouns – They indicate subordinate clauses which function as adjective clauses. Sometimes they are used to point back to noun or pronoun it modifies.
   
   Examples: Who, whom, whose, which, that
   * Sometimes the words whichever, whoever, whomever, what, and whatever are considered relative pronouns, however they do not point back to the noun or pronoun.

5. Interrogative Pronoun – Are used to ask questions
   
   Examples: Who, whom, whose, which, that

6. Demonstrative Pronouns – They are used to identify or point to nouns.
   
   Examples: This, that, these, those

7. Indefinite Pronouns – These are words that refer to nonspecific persons or things. Some are singular, some are plural, the trick is to learn the difference.
   
   Examples: All, anything, everyone, nobody, several, another, both, everything, none, some, any, each, few, no one, somebody, anybody, either, many, nothing, someone, anyone, everybody, neither, one, something.

8. Reciprocal Pronouns – These pronouns refer to specific parts of a plural noun.
   Examples: Each other, one another

** Please note, because pronouns can cause so many problems for writers, I'll be going over the three top problems in a different article – Namely the pronoun-antecedent agreement, pronoun reference problems, and then going over the differences between I and me, and who and whom.

 

** You can click on the image below for a larger picture.