This document discusses pronouns and common issues that ESL/EFL students have with them. It defines different types of pronouns like personal, reflexive, reciprocal, possessive, indefinite and demonstrative pronouns. It also explains anaphora and how pronouns relate to their antecedents. Common errors students make involve choosing the wrong pronoun form, transferring rules from their native language, and modifying antecedents. The document suggests teachers be aware of how a student's first language may interfere with English pronouns and diversify activities to help students learn.

1. Chapter 13: Pronouns
The Teacher’s Grammar of English – Ron Cowan
Prepared by: Aziz DRIOUCH

2.  - Definition.
 - Anaphora and Personal Pronouns.
 - Reflexive Pronouns.
 - Reciprocal Pronouns.
 - Possessive Pronouns.
 - Indefinite Pronouns.
 - Demonstrative pronouns.
 - Pronouns and Agreement.
 - Problems which EFL/ESL students have with
pronouns.
 - Suggestions for teaching pronouns.

3. • a pronoun is a grammatical form that
substitutes in some way a NP or an entire
clause.

4. • A- Anaphora pronouns:
• Anaphora is the connection between pronouns
and their antecedents. There are 4 types of
anaphora:
• 1- Intersentential anaphora : when the
pronoun and its antecedent are in separate
sentences.
- Don‟t show your ideas to James. He might
steal them.

5. • 2- Intrasentential anaphora :when the pronoun
and its antecedent are in the same sentence.
- I cooked a nice pancake and eat it on the spot.
• 3- Forward anaphora: when the antecedents
precede the pronoun.
- Jason took Emily to the library and picked her
up an hour later.
• 4- Backward anaphora: when the pronoun
precedes the antecedent.
- Since they are so noisy, I asked the boys to
leave the room.

6. • B- Personal Pronouns:
Subject personal Object personal
pronouns pronouns
I Me
you You
She/He/ It Him/Her/It
We US
you You
They Them

7. • In certain structures, native speakers „ use of personal pronouns is
more variable than the prescreptive rule.
 In predicate nominals, and according to the
prescriptive rule, the subject pronouns should
always be used when the pronoun is a predicate
nominal following be.
- Who is there? It is I.
 However, native speakers may use object pronouns
instead.
- Who is there? It is me.

8.  The same thing when it comes to comparison.
Although subject pronouns are considered the
prescriptively correct pronoun forms for
shortened comparison, native speakers often
use an object pronoun.
- She is taller than I.
- She is taller than me.
- She is taller than myself.

9.  Conjoining two personal pronouns, or a noun and
a pronoun, often causes confusion concerning
which pronoun form should be used. Let‟s
consider the following examples:
- just between you and I, Zakaria is going to be
promoted.*
- just between you and me, Zakaria is going to be
promoted.

10. Similarly when the two pronouns, or a pronoun
and a nouns, are conjoined in subject position.
- Him and I working on the project.*
- Me and Julie are working on the project.*

11.  Exercise:
- In each sentence that follows, indicate whether the
italicized pronoun is “appropriate” according to the
prescriptivist rule. For each pronoun that isn‟t,
indicate what the appropriate pronoun would be and
why:
Example: - John and me were standing there,
waiting for the bus to come.
Answer: not appropriate because the conjoined
noun and pronoun are in subject position, so we
should use a subject pronoun. Hence, John and I were
standing there.

12. 1- Alice went with Fred, and John came along
with Jean and I a little bit later.
2- Me and this guy managed to get out of the
car before it blew up.
3- Actually, the final design was submitted by
John and myself.
4- Me and Susan are living on the west side of
San Francisco.
5- Between you and me, I don‟t think she is
going to come.

13. • Reflexive pronouns are as follows:
myself ourselves
yourself yourselves
himself/herself/itself themselves

14. Reflexive pronouns have emphatic and non-emphatic
functions:
in their non-emphatic function, reflexive pronouns can:
 Occur after reflexive verbs: Some verbs can only take
a reflexive pronoun as an object. They are called
reflexive verbs; they include: pride oneself, behave
onself, adjust oneself, wash oneself, etc.
- He prides himself of his knowledge of basketball.
NB: In the reflexive verbs, the verbs are optionally
reflexive.
- He shaved himself with a rusty razor.
- He shaved with a rusty razor.

15.  Refer to a preceding NP:
Typically, this NP, the antecedent, is the subject.
- Sphia talks a lot about herself.
- Elmadani recognized himself in the picture.
• Whereas in their emphatic function, reflexive
pronouns are used with a (pro)noun to emphasize it.
The reflexive pronoun can occur in different positions:
- I, myself, would never do anything like that.
- Myself, I would never do anything like that.
- I would never do anything like that myself.

16. • The reciprocal pronouns, each other and one
another, are used to indicate that an action is
being performed by two or more
individuals, each on the others.
- Ali and Aicha admire each other.
- We must learn to get along with one another.

17. • The possessive pronouns are as follows:
mine ours
yours yours
his/hers/its theirs

18. • Possessive pronouns can replace the NPs that
indicate possession:
- is that her purse? Yes, it is hers
Possessive pronouns can be used in
determiner+ noun+ of+ possessive pronoun
constructions when the speaker cannot or does
not want to specify more.
- A teacher of yours mentioned that you
weren‟t in school today.

19. • They are formed by combining
some, any, every, and no with the endings -
one, -body, -thing, as shown in the following
table:

21. • Indefinite pronouns take a singular form of the
verb.
- I hope everyone arrives on time.
However, it is common to native speakers to
refer back to indefinite pronouns with both
singular or plural pronouns and possessive
determiners.
- Someone left her scarf in the class.
- Someone left their scarf in the class.
or
-Everyone has his own preferences.
- Everyone has their own preferences.

22. Singular Plural
This These
That Those

23. • Demonstrative pronouns have an anaphoric
function. They can have as their antecedent as
a noun phrase or, in what is known as sentence
anaphora, can have the entire clause or a
series of clauses.
- Here are application forms. You need to fill
these out.
- Zakaria‟s wife has thrown away all his
books and laptop. This infuriated him, but he
could do nothing about it.

24. • current research indicates that the problems
which EFL/ESL students have with learning
English pronouns result from the similarities
and differences between the pronoun system of
the pronoun system of the learner‟s native
language and that of English. Most errors
students make are:

25. • 1- Selecting the wrong personal pronoun:
In Farsi, for example, subject pronouns
are optional since the verb inflections indicate
number and person. For instance, they use the
word ( (meaning left) to express
he/she/it. So, native speakers of Farsi may
select a pronoun of the wrong gender.
For example: I saw him yesterday, in referring
to a woman.

26. • 2- Transfer of reflexive pronouns:
Students with L1s that contain more
reflexive verbs in English commonly insert
reflexive pronoun after English verbs that
don„t need them. This occurs when the English
verb has a meaning similar to an L1 verb that
takes a reflexive pronoun.
- A soixante-cinq ans, ils doivent se retirer.
- At Sixty years, they must themselves retire.

27. • 3- Modifying antecedents of reflexive pronouns:
As we saw earlier, in a sentence that has a
that clause, there is only one possible antecedent
for the reflexive pronoun.
Example: - Tom thinks that Mike likes himself.
(The antecedent of that is Mike.)
However, in Korean translation of the sentence
above, both Mike and Tom are possible
antecedents of the reflexive pronoun casin.
- Tom-uh Mike-ka casin-ul coashanta-ko
sayngkak-hanta.
(Tom Mike himself likes thinks.) The word order!

28. • 4- Omission of subject pronouns:
Languages such as Spanish and Italian permit
sentences without subject pronouns.
For example, in Spanish:
• Son mis amigos. ( are my friends)
this sentence lacks the personal pronouns, but
for Spanish the third person plural verb form
son is enough to indicate that the subject must
be they.

29. Some English language textbooks design reading
skill activities to help students overcome anaphora as a
potential problem. Thus, they have developed exercises to
provide students with practice in locating correct antecedents.
However, Boudeguer-Yerkovic‟s research indicates that
exercises in ESL reading textbooks that ask students to
identify antecedents of pronouns in paragraphs and short texts
are just a waste of time.
Generally, I think the teacher needs to take into account the
problems stated before, like the interference of L1, and tries to
diversify the activities like those proposed in the book.