The Pronoun
A pronoun is a word used in place of one or more nouns. An easy way to identify a pronoun is to see if a noun can be used in its stead or if a question that may contain what you think is a pronoun can be answered with a noun.
Example: It is driving me crazy! (Is “it” a pronoun?) THE NOISE is driving me crazy! (“Noise” is a noun; therefore, “it” must be a pronoun.)
Example: Who is coming to dinner? (Could “who” be a pronoun?) JAMES is coming to dinner. (“James” is a noun; therefore, “who” must be a pronoun.)
The main purpose of a pronoun is to substitute a noun so that writing (and reading) does not feel repetitive. Look at the examples below.
Example: Anglers complained about the weather forecast. They said it had not warned them of the storm. [The pronouns they and them take the place of the noun anglers. The pronoun it takes the place of the noun forecast.]
Example: A car and a truck collided near the school. They ran over the lawn. [The pronoun they takes the place of two nouns, car and truck.]
Sometimes a pronoun takes the place of another pronoun.
Example: One of our planes is missing. It was last heard from over four hours ago. [The pronoun it takes the place of the pronoun one.]
The word to which a pronoun refers (whose place it takes) is the antecedent of the pronoun. In the preceding example, “one” is the antecedent of “it.”
Pronoun Types - Explained
Personal Pronouns: I, me, you, he, him, she, her, it, we, us, they, them
Possessive Forms of Personal Pronouns: my, mine, your, yours, his, her, hers, its, our, ours, their, theirs
POSSESSIVE PRONOUNS ARE USUALLY IDENTIFIED AS ADJECTIVES.
Reflexive and Intensive Pronouns: myself, yourself, himself, herself, itself, ourselves, yourselves, themselves
Personal pronouns may be used reflexively: Carmen hurt herself.
Personal pronouns may be used intensively for emphasis: Carmen herself was not hurt.
Relative Pronouns: who, whom, which, that, whose
Relative pronouns are used to introduce subordinate clauses: The people who live there are on vacation.
Interrogative Pronouns: who, whom, which, what, whose
Interrogative pronouns are used in questions: Who lives in that house now?
Demonstrative Pronouns: this, these, that, those
Demonstrative pronouns are used to point out persons or things: This seems to be my lucky day.
Indefinite Pronouns: all, another, any, anybody, anyone, both, each, either, everybody, everyone, few, many, most, neither, nobody, none no one, one, other, several, some, somebody, someone, such
Indefinite pronouns express the idea of quantity.
Pronouns - Exercises
Circle the pronouns in 1-10. Underline the nouns in 1-5.
1) Solving the transportation problems of a major urban area challenges those who are responsible for it.
2) Few of the experts who are studying the problems see private cars as part of their solution.
3) Rather, they are a major part of the problem, to judge by most of what we read.
4) The pollution, economic waste, and extreme overcrowding that now prevail are what experts question.
5) As everybody can see, a five-passenger car occupied by only its driver wastes enough passenger space to remove four other cars from the streets.
6) Convenient, efficient mass transportation is what most see as the solution, but even this has no lack of problems.
7) Planners themselves would like to redesign the whole transportation system, but who can achieve that?
8) How can anyone correct all of the drawbacks in a city whose transportation system is old?
9) Only imaginative effort, combined with practical patience, will succeed -- and many of us seem to have neither.
10) We ourselves, wherever each of us travels, are the stakes in this problematic game.