Pronouns

Pronouns

Pronouns:

a pronoun  is a word that replaces a noun, a group of words used as a noun or another pronoun.

There are several different types of pronoun. They all have a role to play in English. There are-

o   Personal pronouns

o   Compound personal pronouns

o   Interrogative pronouns

o   Demonstrative pronouns

o   Distributive pronouns

o   Indefinite pronouns

o   Relative pronouns

o   Reciprocal pronouns

Personal pronouns:

Personal pronouns refer to:

v  The speaker or speakers, which is called first person and include the following pronouns: I, my, me, mine, myself, we, our, ours, us, ourselves.

v  Those spoken to, which is called second person, and include the following pronouns: you, your, yours, yours, yourself, yourselves; or

v  Those spoken about, which is called third person, and include the following pronouns: he, his, him, himself, she, her, hers, herself, it, its, itself, they, their, theirs, them, themselves. Personal pronouns can be singular or plural just as verbs and nouns.

An important chart is given below:

person	subject	object	Possessives	Intensive/Reflexive
1st	I we	me us	Mine/my our	myself ourselves
2nd	you you	you you	your/yours your/yours	yourself yourselves
3rd	He/she/it they	Hem/her/it them	His/hers/its their	Himself/herself/itself themselves

Uses:

I: You refer to yourself by using the pronoun ‘I’. This is always written with a capital letter.

I don’t know him very well.

I think I made a mistake.

May I ask you a question?

You: You refer to the person or people you are talking to as ‘you’. Note that the same word is used for the singular and plural.

You are right.
Would you pass me the salt?
How are you?

‘You’ is also used, especially in spoken English, to refer to people in general, rather than to the person you are talking to:

You cannot predict the results of the general elections.
You don’t know what will happen.

‘He’ and ‘she’: you refer to a man or a boy as ‘he’ and to a woman or girl as ‘she’.

Kamal is fat. He weighs 15 stone.
His wife is slim. She weighs only 8 stone.
The girl is intelligent. Isn’t she?

‘It’: you use ‘it’ to refer to anything which is not male or female; for example, an object, a place or an organization or something abstract.

I have bought a camera. It is very expensive.
Have you ever been to Dhaka? Yes, it is very expensive.
Which is your favorite TV channel? It is the Discovery.

‘It’ is also used to refer to an animal when the gender is not known or not considered to be important. Some people also babies in this way.

He has a dog. He loves it.
Look at the baby. It is smiling.

You also use ‘it’ to refer to a situation, the time, the date or the weather:

It is very quiet here.
It is ten o’clock.
It is 18 August.
It is cold and windy.

‘We’: you use ‘we’ to refer to a group of people which includes yourself, and the group can be:

‘you’ and the person or people you are talking to:

Where shall we go for a picnic?

‘They’ :you use ‘they’ to refer to a group of things or to a group of people not including yourself or the person or people you are talking to.

                                                                                    Exercise:

1.       Change the nouns into pronouns properly:

a.       I met the boys. The boys gave me the boys’s address. The boys were polite. I thanked the boys.

b.       The girl sang nicely. Everybody praised the girl. The girls’s behavior was also nice.

c.       The soldiers were wounded. The soldiers were taken to the hospital. A nurse looked after the soldiers. The soldiers thanked the nurse. The soldiers’s condition improved within a day or two.

d.       The baby cannot eat anything. The baby drinks milk. The baby’s health is good.

2.       Fill in the gaps with right pronoun:

a.       This hand-bag is –.(my/mine)

b.       My T.V set is better than –. (his/he)

c.       This ring is –. (her/hers)

d.       Karim is worse than –.(me,i)

e.       She works by –. (her/herself)

Compound personal pronouns:

Singular	Plural
myself, yourself, himself, herself, itself	ourselves, yourselves,themselves

The two uses for these compound personal pronouns are as :

Reflexive pronouns

Intensive pronouns

Reflexive pronoun:

Reflexive pronouns act as the object of the verb, but they reflect the action back to the subject. The reflexive pronoun will always be the same person or thing as the subject.

Example: I hurt myself with the knife.

                  You normally dress yourself, don’t you?

Reflexive pronoun should not be used as subject:

My brother and myself will be glad to help you.(incorrect)

My brother and I will be glad to help you.(correct)

He was working by himself. (by+Reflexive Pronoun=alone)

She cooked the rice all by herself. (all by+Reflexive Pronoun=without any help of others )

Reflexive Pronoun can be used after verb+preposition:

She looked at herself in the mirror.

They took care of themselves.

Intensive pronoun/ Emphatic pronoun:

 intensive pronoun simply add force or emphasis to a noun or pronoun that is already in the sentence.

Example: I myself prepared the meal.

                  He himself tried to paint the house.

                  You yourself must submit the application.

Interrogative pronoun:

As their name implies, these pronouns are used in asking questions. They are only three: who, which, what. The first one, however, has three forms. Who is the subjective form; whose is the possessive form; whom is the objective form.

Example :

Who is the owner of this house?

Which is the case you are talking to?

To whom does the pen belong?

Interrogative  pronouns are also used to introduce reported questions.

He asked me who was on telephone.

I wonder what he would do now.

When you report a question-

You do not treat it as a question by using an interrogative word order.

You do not use a question mark.

Demonstrative pronouns:

These pronouns point out definite persons, places or things.  These are : this, these, that, those, such, the same. What often confuses is that these same words can also be used as adjectives. How can you tell the difference? Demonstrative pronouns are used in place of nouns. Demonstrative adjectives are used with nouns.

Example:

Demonstrative pronouns	Demonstrative Adjectives
This is my coat. (This is the subject of the sentence.)	This coat belongs to me. ( This modifies the subject ‘coat’)
These are my shirts. (These is the subject of the sentence.)	These shirts have been ironed properly. ( These modifies the subject ‘shirt’)
Did you see that? (that is the object of the verb ‘see’.)	Did you see that crazy driver?(that modifies the object ‘driver’ .)
Those are easy questions. (as subject)	Those questions are very easy.(as modifier)

That of and those of are used to avoid the repetition of a preceding noun. They are used for comparing the same thing of two places.

The climate of Rajshahi is better than that of Khulna.

The litchis of Dinajpur are better than those of Rajshahi.

The roads of Chittagong are wider than those of Comilla.

Such: Such is used as a pronoun to refer to the type that has already been mentioned.

He was intelligent and as such was loved by his relatives.

The same:

He will do the same as I do.

She bought the same mobile se as yours.

Distributive Pronouns:

Each of the boys has got a price. (everyone separately)

Each of them has done his duty.

Each of the girls was given a mango.

Either of the four boys will be rewarded. (one of the two)

Either of the two girls is intelligent.

Either of the roads will lead you to the destination.

Neither of the man can do the work. (none)

Neither of the four woman was late.

Neither of the students has written the answer correctly.

Some of them are working in the office.

He has two sisters, both of them live in the USA.

                                                                                                 Exercise:

1.      Complete the sentences with neither/ either/ none/ any:

a.       They tried a lot of buses but – of them had any buses.

b.       I took two novels with me on holiday but I didn’t read – of them.

c.       There are few shops at the end of the street but –of them sells magazine.

d.       Jafar and I could not get into the house because –of us had a key.

e.       I can meet him on the 6^th or 7^th instant. Would –of those days be convenient for him?

Indefinite pronouns:

When you want to refer to people or things you do not know exactly who or what they are or their identity is not important, you can use an indefinite pronoun. An indefinite pronoun indicates only that you are talking about people or things, rather than referring to specific person or thing. Indefinite pronouns work as singular subject.

He was waiting for something.

I was there before anybody came.

Somebody was present at the meeting.

Here is a list of indefinite pronouns:

any, anybody, everybody, nobody, somebody, anyone, everyone, no one,none someone, anything, nothing, something.

Somebody was present at the meeting.

Any and none are used both as singular and plural.

Any of them is brave.

Any of them are brave.

None of them was present.

None of them were present.

Relative pronouns:

A relative pronoun joins the clause which it introduces to its own antecedent, the noun or pronoun to which it refers.

When a sentence consists of a main clause and a relative clause introduced by ‘who’, ‘which’, or ‘that’ these words are known as relative pronouns. Like other pronouns, they refer  to  somebody or something that has already been mentioned. At the same time they are conjunctions because they join the clauses together.

Here is a list of most common relative pronouns:

What, which, that, who, whom, whose.

Relative pronoun do not have masculine , feminine , or plural form. The same pronoun can be used about a man or a woman, or a group of people.

Example:

I have an uncle who lives in japan.

I know a girl who speaks English well.

There are many people who hate smoking.

He is the boy whose pen is lost.

This is the man whom you can rely upon.

Kamal has a brother. His brother lives in Noakhali.(do)

Antecedent: The word for which the pronoun stands is called its antecedent. It may be in the same sentence,  in a previous sentence or not given at all. An example would be, “The boy threw the football. He threw it over the fence.” Here , Boy is the antecedent for he, and football is the antecedent for it. A pronoun can be an antecedent for another pronoun. For example, “He likes his new cat.” In this sentence he is the antecedent for his. The antecedent always comes  before the pronoun for which it is the antecedent.

Reciprocal pronouns:nothing, something.meone, anyhting, anyeone,    everything           few         manyut people or things, rather than refferin

The reciprocal pronouns ‘ each other’ and ‘ one another’ are used to indicate that people do the same thing, feel  the same way or have the same relationship.

Example:

We help each other.

Mr Hasan and his wife understand one another.

We send each other gifts at Eid .

v  A pronoun takes its objective form after verb and preposition.

NounGi case :

Nominative                                Objective                          Possessive

Karim                                            karim                                   karim’s

Karim loved Samira.

 N                         O

Samira loved karim.

  N                      O

Possessive Kivi wbqg t

1.Rxeb _vK‡j t

a. ‡k‡l S ‡bB tP=N+’S

Man               man’s                girl            girl’s

b. ‡k‡lS Av‡Q tP=N+’

Girls             girls’             boys         boys’

2.Rxeb bv _vK‡j t       P=of+the+N

Chair           of the chair

 Exceptional

Today       today’s             duty          duty’s                   country          country’s

                                                                                 Exercise:

Pronouns are given in box on the right. Pick out a pronoun and use the

right one in the gap.

a.       –should do one’s duty.

b.       –can count the stars.

c.       –will help you?

d.       –is the best book.

e.       –you say is true.

f.        –are costly pencils.

g.       The rice of Barisal is better than –of Dinajpur.

h.       The mangoes are not ripe, I want some ripe –.

i.         –of the boys will have a prize.

j.         –of the boys is present.

k.       I want to buy –of the two pens.

one what those who none any either each themselves neither both ones this that