2. PRONOUNS
⩥ A pronoun is a sentence element used to
replace a noun or a noun equivalent.
⩥ The replaced noun is called the
“antecedent”
3. PRONOUNS
⩥ Syntactically, pronouns have the same
functions as nouns do; morphologically,
pronouns are used to avoid repetition,
and to set/clarify nouns' categories of
number, person, and gender.
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5. Kinds of pronouns
1. Personal Pronouns
2. Possessive Pronouns
3. Demonstrative Pronouns
4. Reflexive and Emphatic Pronouns
5. Interrogative Pronouns
6. Relative Pronouns
7. Reciprocal Pronouns
8. Indefinite Pronouns
6. Personal pronouns
They represent specific people or things. We use
them depending on:
⩥ number: singular (I) or plural ( we).
⩥ person: 1st person (I), 2nd person (you) or 3rd
⩥ person(he).
⩥ gender: male (he), female (she) or neuter (it).
⩥ case: subject (we) or object (us).
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8. Possessive pronouns
We use possessive pronouns to refer to a
specific person/people or thing/things (the
"antecedent") belonging to a person/people
(and sometimes belonging to an
animal/animals or thing/things).
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9. Possessive pronouns
We use possessive pronouns depending on:
⩥ number: singular (mine) or plural (ours)
⩥ person: 1st person (mine), 2nd person (yours) or
3rd person (his)
⩥ gender: male (his), female (hers) .
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12. Reflexive and intensive
pronouns
⩥ Reflexive pronoun is used with an active voice
verb in order to reflect the action of the verb back
on the subject--the antecedent.
⩥ Intensive or Emphatic pronoun accompanies
its antecedent in order to accentuate its
action/state.
⩥ Reflexive and intensive/emphatic pronouns
take different positions within the sentence
structure.
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13. Reflexive pronouns
** We use a reflexive pronoun when we want to
refer back to the subject of the sentence or clause.
Reflexive pronouns end in "-self" (singular) or "-
selves" (plural).
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15. Reflexive pronouns
⩥ I saw myself in the mirror.
⩥ -Why do you blame yourself?
⩥ -John sent himself a copy.
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16. Intensive/emphatic
pronouns
⩥ -I made it myself. OR I myself made it.
⩥ -Have you yourself seen it? OR Have you seen it
⩥ yourself?
⩥ -She spoke to me herself. OR She herself spoke
to me.
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17. Demonstrative pronouns
⩥ Demonstrative pronouns and demonstrative
adjectives have exactly the same forms. The
way to differentiate them depends on their
position relative to the
antecedent/determined nouns.
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18. Demonstrative pronouns
⩥ A demonstrative pronoun represents a thing or
things:
⩥ *near in distance or time (this, these)
⩥ *far in distance or time (that, those)
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20. Interrogative pronoun
We use interrogative pronouns to ask questions.
The interrogative pronoun represents the thing
that we don't know (what we are asking the
question about).
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22. Relative pronouns
- A relative pronoun is a pronoun that introduces
a relative clause. It is called a "relative" pronoun
because it "relates" to the word that it modifies.
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23. Relative pronouns
⩥ There are five relative pronouns:
who, whom, whose, which, that.
⩥ Who (subject) and whom (object) are
generally only for people. Whose is for
possession. Which is for things. That can be
used for people, and things and as subject and
object in defining relative clauses.
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24. ⩥ - The person who phoned me last
night is my teacher.
- The car which hit me was yellow.
- The person whom I phoned
last night is my teacher.
- The car, whose driver jumped out
just before the accident, was
completely destroyed
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25. Reciprocal pronouns
- We use reciprocal pronouns
when each of two or more
subjects is acting in the same
way towards the other.
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26. Reciprocal pronouns
There are only two reciprocal
pronouns, and they are both two
words:
- each other
- one another
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27. Reciprocal pronouns
⩥ Examples:
- John and Mary love each other.
- The ten prisoners were all blaming
⩥ one another.
- Why don't you believe each other?
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28. Indefinite pronouns
An indefinite pronoun does not refer to any
specific person, thing or amount. It is vague and
"not definite". Some typical indefinite pronouns
are:
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