Pronoun

Pronoun –
 Pronouns are words which are used to represent nouns which are already been spoken about.

Types of Pronouns –
there are different types of pronouns which are

1. Personal Pronoun
2. Reflexive Pronoun
3. Emphatic Pronoun
4. Demonstrative Pronoun
5. Indefinite Pronoun
6. Distributive Pronoun
7. Relative Pronoun
8. Recipocal Pronoun 
9. Interrogative Pronoun

1. Personal Pronoun

First Person Pronoun:
The singular form of these pronouns are ‘Me’, ‘My’ and ‘Mine’.
The plural form of these pronouns are ‘we’, ‘our (or) ours’ and ‘us’

Eg – My book is on the table.

Second Person Pronoun:

Second person pronouns are ‘you’, ‘your’ and ‘yours’.

Eg– You are very beautiful!

Third person pronoun:

Plural is the same for all genders.
Plural of third person pronouns are ‘they’, ‘their’, ‘theirs’ and ‘them‘.

Eg – They are going for a movie.

Person	Nominative	Objective	possessive
1st person Singular	I	me	my/mine
1st Person Plural	We	Us	Our/Ours
IInd Person Plural	you	you	your /yours
IIIrd Person Singular	She	Her	Her/hers
	He	him	his
	It	It	Its
IIIrd Person Plural	They	Them	Their/theirs

 Subject Pronoun: (Subjective case)
(I, we, you, he, she, it, they)
Eg. She is at work.

‘She’ is main subject of the sentence, hence in the sentence, ‘She’ is the subjective personal pronoun.  

Eg. He and I have always fight in everything.

Eg. It were we who called him.

 Objective pronoun (objective case)
Eg.  He will meet us later.
‘Us’ is the objective personal pronoun, as it is the object of the verb ‘meet.’

Eg. I tried to play with football, but he hit me with it anyway.

2. Possessive pronoun (possessive case)

Possessive pronoun show ownership or close possession.The term covers both possessive pronouns and possessive adjective. 

(his,yours,hers,mine, ours, theirs etc.)

Eg. That is our clubhouse.

‘Our’ shows the possession of the object ‘clubhouse’.

Gender
Eg.  He went to the market.
He is used for male gender.
Other examples – (his, him, he etc.)
Eg. She is doing the laundry.

‘she’ is used for female gender.

(Her, hers, etc.)
Eg. It is important to them.

 Number
Singular Pronoun – where the pronoun is only referring to one specific Noun.
Eg. That book belongs to me.

Plural Pronoun – where the pronoun is used to refer to a number of nouns.

Eg. That is Their book, not yours.

Eg. The colleague I borrowed money from showed me a football and told me to pay him immediately.

2. Reflexive Pronoun

These are the ones that end in “self” or “selves.” They are object pronouns that we use when the subject and the object are the same noun.  

( herself,himself,yourself,yourselves, ourselves,itself,themselves) are reflexive pronoun.

Eg. My friend really hurt himself when he tripped on the stairs.

3. Emphatic Pronoun

These pronouns are used to emphasize a Noun or pronoun.
(myself,himself, herself, themselves, itself, yourself, yourselves and ourselves.) 

Eg.  I myself heard the remark.

4. Demonstrative Pronoun

Words such as ‘this’, ‘these’, ‘those’, ‘that’, ‘such’ etc which tries to point out an object are known as demonstrative pronouns.

Eg. These are my friends,” I said as I introduced them to my parents.

Eg. Those girls are our classmate.

5. Indefinite Pronoun

These pronouns do not point to any particular nouns, but refer to things or people in general. Some of them are: few, everyone, all, some, anything, and nobody.  

Eg. Everyone is going to watch movie.

6. Distributive Pronoun

Words which refer to persons or things but one at a time are known as distributive pronouns.

Generally ‘each’, ‘either’, and ‘neither’ are called distributive pronouns. 

Eg. One must think positive for one’s nation.

Eg. Every child has been provided a pen.

7. Relative Pronoun

These pronouns are used to connect a clause or phrase to a noun or pronoun. These are: who, whom, which, whoever, whomever, whichever, and that. 

Eg. The girl who is walking in the garden is very beautiful.

Eg. It is the pen which i like most. 

8. Recipocal Pronoun 

A reciprocal pronoun is used when two or more nouns(subjects) are reciprocating(inversion) to each other or one another in some action.

 wo reciprocal pronouns are only exists here.

• One another
• Each Other 

Eg. We are one another classmate.  

Eg. Both are each other classmate.

9. Interrogative Pronoun 

These pronouns are used to begin a question: who, whom, which, what, whoever, whomever, whichever, and whatever.

Eg.  Which car are you buying? 

Important Rules 

1. When a pronoun refers to a noun already stated in the sentence, the replaced noun is called antecedent. The pronoun should be placed close to its antecedent and must agree with it in gender and number.

Antecedent - 1. Personal Pronoun

                       2. 

Often, an antecedent is the word, phrase, or clause that you replace with -

1. Third-person personal pronouns - he, him, his, himself
                                                          she, her, hers, herself
                                                          it, its, itself
                                                          they, them, their, theirs, themselves

Eg. When Rohan sprained his ankle, Coach Ames replaced him with Jasper, a much slower runner.

Rohan= antecedent; him = personal pronoun. 

Eg. Eating with your mouth closed has several benefits. Most importantly, it keeps people from turning away in disgust.

Eating with your mouth closed = phrase as antecedent;  it = personal pronoun. 

Eg. Karline hopes that her roommates remember old studies together. When they meet 

that her roommates remember old studies together = clause as antecedent;  they = personal pronoun.

2. Demonstrative pronouns - this, that, these, those

Eg.  Francine prays that the neighbors will keep their barking dog inside. That will allow her to get a good night's sleep.

3. Relative pronouns - who, whom, whose, that, which

Eg.  Eating ice cream for dinner, which might not be nutritionally smart, is what Teresa wanted after her long day of waitressing

Notes-When antecedent is singular ,the singular pronoun should used.

When you join two or more singular nouns with and, you create a plural antecedent:

Eg. The beetle and baby snake were thankful they escaped the lawnmower blade
Beetle + snake = plural antecedent; they = plural pronoun.

Each beetle and baby snake was thankful it escaped the lawnmower blade.
Each beetle + baby snake = singular antecedent; it = singular pronoun.

2. Collective nouns such as group, committee, and family, use either a singular OR plural pronoun depending on whether the writer is referring to the group as a single unit OR to the individual members of the group. 

Eg. The committee put their signatures on the new report.

3. When used as subjects, non-countable pronouns such as any, anybody, anyone, each, either, enough, everybody, everyone, few, little, many, much, neither, nobody, some, somebody, someone etc., take singular pronouns.

Eg. Someone needs to take the garbage out, but nobody volunteers to do the same. (singular pronoun)

4. Never use apostrophes with possessive pronouns.
Eg. Cathy took her’s dog for a walk. (WRONG) replace 'her's' by 'her'

5. Proper usage of reciprocal pronouns. ‘Each other’ is used for two people. ‘One another’ is used when there are more than two people involved.
Eg. People in this society love one another.

Practice Question

Q1. One of them (a) / forgot to take their bag (b) / from the school (c) / No error (d).
Q2. Each girl was (a) / given a bunch of flowers (b) / which pleased her very much (c) / No error (d)
Q3. Both he as well as I (a) / are going to Delhi (b) / tomorrow to buy new motorbyke (c) / No error (d)

Q4. The person which was (a) recommended for the (b) position did not fulfil (c) the prescribed qualification(d)No error(e)
Q5.  She helped everyone (a) / of those boys(b)/  in doing their work.(c)/ No error (d)

Q6. The committee were (a)/divided in its opinion (b)/ regarding this issue. (c) / No error (d)

Answer and Explanation

1 . (b) Replace ‘their ‘ by ‘his’  
2.  (c) Replace ‘her’ by ‘them’
3.  (a) Replace ‘as well as’ by ‘and’ 
4.  (a) Replace ‘which’ by ‘who’
5.  (a) Replace ‘their’ by ‘his’
6.  (a) Replace ‘its’ by ‘their’