Pronouns are used in place of nouns to avoid repetition. There are several types of pronouns including personal pronouns that change form based on gender, number, and case; demonstrative pronouns like this and that; interrogative pronouns like who and what that are used to ask questions; relative pronouns like who and which that join two clauses; and indefinite pronouns like anyone and everything that refer to unspecified people or objects. Pronouns can also be reflexive to refer back to a noun in the same sentence or reciprocal to show two nouns acting in the same way toward each other.

1. Pronouns

2. Pronouns - are words that we use in
place of Nouns (or other Pronouns) in a
sentence to make it less repetitive and
less awkward. Some of the most
common Pronouns are - he, she, you,
they, it, etc.

3. Categories
of
Pronouns

4. Personal Pronouns
These pronouns are used for a specific
object or person and they change their
forms to indicate the different genders,
numbers, case and persons speaking -

5. Examples:
 Tanya told him to take the food to them
as soon as possible as it was urgently
needed.
 ‘Him’ is a Pronoun of gender.

6. Examples:
 ‘Them’ is a Pronoun of number showing
that there is more than one person, and
it is also a Pronoun of case as it is
referring to a specific group in an
objective manner.
 ‘It’ is also a Pronoun of gender showing
the object (food).

7. So we can see that the Personal Pronouns can
be based on -
Gender –
He went to the market. - He is used for the
male gender. Other examples are - His, Him,
He, etc.
She is doing the laundry. - She is used for the
female gender. Other examples are - Her,
Hers, etc.

8. It is important to them. - It is gender neutral
as it shows an object, them is also gender
neutral as them can consist of both genders.
Other gender neutral pronouns are - Their,
They, Its, etc.

9. So we can see that the Personal Pronouns can
be based on -
Number –
Singular Pronouns - Where the pronoun is
only referring to one specific noun.
That book belongs to me. - Me refers to one
singular person only.
Plural Pronouns - Where the pronoun is used
to refer to a number of nouns.

10. That is their book, not yours. - Their shows a
number of people, hence it’s a plural personal
pronoun. Whereas the ‘yours’ in this sentence
is another example of singular personal
pronoun.

11. So we can see that the Personal Pronouns can
be based on -
Cases – (Subjective Case )
She is at work. -‘She’ is the main subject of the
sentence, hence in this sentence, ‘she’ is the
subjective personal pronoun. You can ask the
question ‘who/what is doing ______?’ to
recognize whether a pronoun is subjective or
objective.

12. So we can see that the Personal Pronouns can
be based on -
Cases – (Objective Case )
He will meet us later. -‘Us’ is the objective
personal noun as it the object of the verb meet.
‘He’ is the subject as he is the person who will
be doing the action of meeting.

13. So we can see that the Personal Pronouns can
be based on -
Cases – (Possessive Case Case )
That is our clubhouse. - ‘Our’ shows the
possession of the object ‘clubhouse’.
Possessive pronouns can also be used to show
possession over people.

14. Demonstrative Pronouns
Demonstrative Pronouns are used to show or
identify one or a number of nouns that may be
far or near in distance or time. They are only
four in number - This, That, These and Those.
This and That are singular demonstrative
pronouns and These and Those are plural
demonstrative pronouns. They can also be
used to show an unspecified quantity in a
sentence.

15. Examples:
 That is a beautiful house. - That is a
demonstrative pronoun that is referring
to a specific noun (house). This is a
singular pronoun as it is referring to
only one house.

16. Examples:
 These were made by me. - These is
showing an unspecified quantity of
something that was made by a person.
This is a plural demonstrative pronoun
as it’s referring to a number of objects.

17. Examples:
 Everyone remembers those days. -
Those is showing a particular time or
period of days in the past; it is being
used in place of a noun that could be -
school, summer, college, etc. Here also
those is a plural demonstrative pronoun
as it’s indicating a number of days.

18. Examples:
 This is what he is charging? - This is
used as pronoun in place of a number
and it is also acting as a quantifier by
referring not only to the noun but to the
amount/number of the noun as well.
This is a singular demonstrative
pronoun.

19. Interrogative Pronouns
Who, Whom, Which and What are
Interrogative Pronouns as they are used to
ask questions about a person or object that
we do not know about. Compounds of
these words are made by attaching ‘-ever’
to the words to strengthen the emphasis on
the word.

20. Examples:
 Which one would you like? - Here,
‘which’ is being used to ask someone to
make a choice between different things,
instead of naming every single choice
that is available.

21. Examples:
 What is your name? - What is used to
ask a personal noun that the speaker
doesn’t know.

22. Examples:
 Who will be managing the buffet? - Who
is used to ask about a specific person
related to a task.
 Whom did you tell about this? - Whom
is showing/asking the person who was
told something by ‘you’.

23. Examples:
 Whoever could have done this? -
Whoever is the compound of ‘Who’ and
it is used here to emphasize the feeling
of confusion in the sentence while still
asking a question.
 Whichever one will you choose? -
Whichever is used here to show strong
emotion while asking a person’s choice.

24. In the case of Who and Whom -
Who is always the subject of the verb. The
emphasis is on the identity of the person who
did the action.
Who rang the bell? Here, we can see that the
verb phrase rang the bell is secondary and the
main emphasis is on the identity of the person
ringing the bell.

25. In the case of Who and Whom -
Whom is never the subject of the verb. It is
used to show the person to or for whom the
action is being done. In other words, it is the
object of the verb.
Whom were you meeting with? Here, we can
see that the subject of verb or the person who
was meeting someone is ‘you’. Whom is the
object of the verb or the person ‘you’ were
‘meeting’.

26. Relative Pronouns
Relative Pronouns are used to join or relate
two different clauses together by referring
to the noun in the previous clause using
the pronouns - Who, Whom, Whose,
Which and That. Which and That are
generally used for objects; while Who and
Whom are used for people, and Whose is
used to show possession.

27. Examples:
 She will choose the color which looks
good on everyone.
Here, which is joining the two related
clauses about choosing a color and a color
which would look good on everyone.

28. Examples:
 She is complaining to whoever she
comes across nowadays.
Here, the whoever is the object of the verb
‘complaining’ and it is linking the two
clauses about someone complaining and
the frequency of their complaints.

29. Examples:
 There is a car in the parking lot that
someone has painted a bright pink.
 That is joining the two sentences related
to the object and its location in the first
and its appearance in the second.
 She needs to know by tomorrow who
will be accompanying her on the trip.

30. Examples:
 Who here stands for the unknown
person and it also joins the two different
clauses together.
 Is there anyone here whose mobile
phone has a signal?
 Whose is used here to ask if anyone has
possession of something that the speaker
needs.

31. Indefinite Pronouns
These pronouns are used to show unspecified
objects or people, whether in plural or in
singular. They are used to indicate the entire
noun or some of the noun or none of the noun.
They are used when we want to refer to group
of nouns without actually specifying who or
how much.
Some common indefinite nouns are - anyone,
someone, none, everything, many, few, etc.

32. Examples:
 If anyone has seen my notebook please
return it to me. – Here, we see the
pronoun anyone is being used to refer to
everyone without any specification.
 A few of the members were not satisfied
with the service. - Few means a small
number of people/objects. Hence, it is a
plural indefinite pronoun.

33. Examples:
 Nobody was answering when I called
them last. – Here, we see a pronoun
nobody being used to show no one at
all. It is a singular indefinite pronoun.

34. Reflexive and Intensive Pronouns
Reflexive Pronouns are those which are
used to indicate a noun which has been
used in an earlier part of the same
sentence. These pronouns are - Myself,
Themselves, Yourself, Ourselves, Herself,
Himself and Itself.

35. Examples:
 Rosa was going to take it to the shop but
ended up fixing it herself one afternoon.
– Here, we can see that herself is being
used to refer to ‘Rosa’ again at the end of
the sentence.
 He prefers to be by himself after a
game. – Here, himself is used to refer to
‘him’.

36. Examples:
 Apart from ordering in, they cooked a few
snack themselves. – Here themselves is
used to show that ‘they’ cooked something.
 The horse hurt itself while trying to escape.
- Since itself is a gender neutral pronoun, it
is used to show the nouns that have no
definite gender. E.g. : material things or
ideas, etc.; or whose gender is unknown. E :
animals.

37. These same words are also called Intensive
Pronouns, which are used to lay emphasis on
the pronoun that comes before them in the
sentence.
 They themselves knew that the prank was
in bad taste. - Here, the pronoun
themselves is used to emphasize ‘they’.
 Avoid reporting things that you yourself
haven’t witnessed. - Here yourself is used
to emphasize the pronoun ‘you’.

38. Reciprocal Pronouns
There are just two Reciprocal Pronouns -
Each other and One another. They are
used when two or more nouns are doing or
being the same to one another. Both of
these pronouns are plural in nature as they
can only be used in situations where there
is more than one noun.

39. Examples:
 Jamie and Jack always sit beside each
other in break. – Here, the reciprocation
is between the children as they both sit
together.
 They haven’t seen one another since last
year. – Here, neither of the two parties
has seen each other in some time.

40. Examples:
 The trees seem to reach towards each
other in a strong wind. – Here, we have
an unspecified amount of trees bending
towards the others in a strong wind.

41. Exercises 1.1
Direction: Determine what type of
Adjective are the following.
1.) honest 6.) five
2.) many 7.) beautiful
3.) these 8.) best
4.) what 9.) dozen
5.) few 10.) who

42. Exercises 1.2
Direction: Give the Positive, Comparative and
Superlative form of the following Adjectives.
Positive Comparative Superlative
prettier
good
least
more brave
tall

43. Exercises 1.3
Direction: Identify the following.
________ 1.) are words that are used to
describe nouns and pronouns.
________ 2.) These adjectives are used to
describe the nature of a noun.
________ 3.) These adjectives are used to
show the number of nouns and their place
in an order.

44. Exercises 1.3
Direction: Identify the following.
________ 4.) These adjectives are used to
ask questions about nouns or in relation to
nouns, they are - Where, What, Which and
Whose.
________ 5.) These are the simple adjectives
that simply describe the noun without
comparing it to another - big, sweet, clean,
etc.
End 