Pronouns - find out how to replace nouns in English.

This lecture is all about pronouns.

Pronouns are words that are used in place of other nouns.

They are used to avoid unnatural speech and repetition.

They can be divided into definite pronouns and indefinite pronouns.

As we said, pronouns are used to avoid unnatural speech and repetition.

Let’s have a look at an example sentence.

John said that John was looking for John’s hat.

So John comes up three times.

It is repetitive and it doesn’t sound natural.

We can change this through use of pronouns.

John said that he was looking for his hat.

Or if if I’m John,

I said that I was looking for my hat.

And in all of the examples, you’ll see that the pronouns are in bold italics and this will be the case throughout this lecture.

Definite pronouns replace specific nouns and can be further divided into subject pronouns, object pronouns, possessive pronouns, personal pronouns, reflexive pronouns, intensive pronouns, demonstrative pronouns and interrogative pronouns.

Subject pronouns replace nouns that are the subject in a sentence and we replace a name to avoid repetition.

The subject pronouns are: I, he, she, it, we, you, they.

Look at some examples.

I am a teacher, the car is damaged and it needs to be repaired, we are hungry, you drank my beer.

Object pronouns replace a direct or indirect object in a sentence or clause.

The object pronouns are: me, him, her, it, us, you, them.

Look at some examples.

You gave the book to me, I can’t find it, invite them to dinner tomorrow, Susie works for him.

Possessive pronouns replace possessive nouns.

They can be either the subject or object in a sentence or clause.

The possessive pronouns are: my, mine, his, her, hers, its, our, ours, your, yours, their, theirs.

We need some examples.

The bag is mine - it’s my bag, have you done your homework?

This is our house - this house is ours, that is their car - that car is theirs.

personal pronouns sre used to replace a person or people in a sentence but they can also be used to represent animals, objects, or ideas.

They can be the subject or object.

Some examples:

You drank my beer.

He helped Susie with her coat.

We will win the cup.

My team is unbeatable.

Reflexive pronouns.

These are used in place of a person or a thing that is both the subject and object of the same verb.

I think we need some examples to show what we mean.

I saw myself in the mirror, we heard ourselves singing.

So as we can see, in both of these cases, the same person in the first one, I, I was the one who is doing the seeing and I was the one who was seen.

Iin the second example, we were the people singing and we were the people who heard the singing.

However, he heard ourselves singing is incorrect because is a different subject and object.

The subject is he and we were the ones who were singing.

Correct would be, he heard us singing.

The full list of reflexive pronouns are: myself, yourself, himself, herself, itself, oneself, ourselves, yourselves, themselves.

Reflexive pronouns are never used as the subject - they only act as the object and only when the person or thing has been used as the subject.

Here are some incorrect examples: myself saw me in the mirror.

You can’t do this.

You have to have the reflexive part as the object so correct would be.

I saw myself in the mirror.

Ourselves heard us singing.

Again we have to change this too we heard ourselves singing.

Intensive pronouns are used to emphasize the subject in a sentence.

They are not the object of an action and they look very similar to reflexive pronouns that we’ve just seen.

Some examples:

I made that cake myself.

I could just say, I made that cake.

But by saying I made that cake myself is emphasized the fact that I did it.

You told me the location yourself.

Again, we could just say, you told me the location but in this particular case, it looks like something went wrong and I’m saying you told me the location yourself - I mean you told me.

The president himself wrote me a letter, emphasizes that the president wrote me a letter.

Demonstrative pronouns are used to replace nouns that are close by.

So, this or these.

Or they used to replace nouns that are far away, that and those.

They usually require context to identify the nouns that they’re replacing.

Here are some examples: I made this cake myself.

So the cake maybe is in my hand or just in front of me and I can say this cake.

The one near me.

You will like these cookies.

Again, I’ve probably got a plateful of cookies and I’m talking about these ones.

That is Susie over there.

So Susie is not nearby.

She’s maybe on the other side of the room and you’re pointing her out.

I like those houses.

Again, the houses are further away.

So we used those, not these.

Interrogated pronouns.

These are used in questions to replace nouns.

They can be the subject or object in a sentence or clause.

They can be used in direct, indirect, or reported questions.

The main interrogative pronouns are: who, whom, whose, which, what.

Some examples: who is coming to the party tonight?

as a direct question.

Could you tell me whose these are?

is the indirect question.

A reported question,

She wants to know which is correct.

and an indirect question to give emphasis.

You’re wearing what to the party?

Someone has decided what they’re to wear to the party is not a good idea and they’re kind of emphasizing you’re wearing what?

You will notice in the previous examples, there’s no examples with whom.

We’ll just explain this quickly why.

The difference between who and whom.

So who is used for the subject in a sentence and whom is used for the object and there’s an easy trick to decide which is which, is you associate who with he and whom to him.

So we see the m on whom and him - they match.

Here’s some examples.

Who is coming to the party tonight?

He is coming.

To whom do these shoes belong?

They belong to him.

So the first example is, he is coming, so we say who.

In the second example, they belong to him, so we have to say whom.

However, the use of whom sounds very archaic and old fashioned these days and strange.

Linguists are in agreement that whom will probably disappear entirely within the next hundred years and they will just use who for both cases.

So they will say who do these shoes belong to?

And people say that now.

So a hundred years is probably quite a sort of a long estimate.

And the time it would take to disappear it could be a lot shorter Indefinite pronouns are placed in the same location as the noun it replaces.

They do not refer to a specific noun and can be formed with variations of: any, some, every, and no.

Look at each of those in turn.

Indefinite Pronouns with any.

These refer to indefinite and incomplete quantities and are used in questions where the answer is generally not known.

And are used with not to emphasize negative sentences.

So here’s some examples.

Do they have any children?

Are you going anywhere nice on your holidays?

She doesn’t want any cake.

She doesn’t want anything to do with him.

Indefinite pronouns with some.

These refer to indefinite or incomplete quantities and are used in questions where you think you know the answer.

Also used in questions to ask for or offer something and we’ll see some examples.

We drank some beer last night.

We don’t know exactly how many.

Someone’s been sleeping in my bed.

Great quote from Goldilocks and the Three Bears.

Are you going somewhere nice on your holidays?

Would you like some tea?

Definite pronouns with every.

Refers to plurals but are treated and considered to be singular.

They refer to a group of people, things, or places.

So the group is the singular part.

Here are some examples.

We can start-

everybody is here.

Please note,

Everybody is here.

Not everybody are here.

We’re talking the group.

Everybody.

It will be a big party everyone is invited.

Again everyone is invited.

They lost everything in the fire.

I can’t find my phone I’ve looked everywhere for it.

Indefinite pronouns with no.

Again refer to plurals but are considered singular.

They refer to an absence of people, things, or places.

Here are some examples.

She’s very lonely - nobody visits her.

Again, it’s singular nobody visits not nobody visit her.

We made all that food and no one came.

No one here is spelled as two separate words you can hyphenate the two but please don’t put them together.

This town is dull - nothing ever happens here.

There was nowhere to park the car.

Indefinite pronouns placement.

They are placed in the same location as the noun or nouns that they replace.

And here are some examples to illustrate this.

I won’t tell Paul what you did.

I won’t tell anyone what you did.

So the same location is used.

He gave me a present.

He gave me something.

We bought the food there.

We bought eThis lecture is all about pronouns.

Pronouns are words that are used in place of other nouns.

They are used to avoid unnatural speech and repetition.

They can be divided into definite pronouns and indefinite pronouns.

As we said, pronouns are used to avoid unnatural speech and repetition.

Let’s have a look at an example sentence.

John said that John was looking for John’s hat.

So John comes up three times.

It is repetitive and it doesn’t sound natural.

We can change this through use of pronouns.

John said that he was looking for his hat.

Or if if I’m John,

I said that I was looking for my hat.

And in all of the examples, you’ll see that the pronouns are in bold italics and this will be the case throughout this lecture.

Definite pronouns replace specific nouns and can be further divided into subject pronouns, object pronouns, possessive pronouns, personal pronouns, reflexive pronouns, intensive pronouns, demonstrative pronouns and interrogative pronouns.

Subject pronouns replace nouns that are the subject in a sentence and we replace a name to avoid repetition.

The subject pronouns are: I, he, she, it, we, you, they.

Look at some examples.

I am a teacher, the car is damaged and it needs to be repaired, we are hungry, you drank my beer.

Object pronouns replace a direct or indirect object in a sentence or clause.

The object pronouns are: me, him, her, it, us, you, them.

Look at some examples.

You gave the book to me, I can’t find it, invite them to dinner tomorrow, Susie works for him.

Possessive pronouns replace possessive nouns.

They can be either the subject or object in a sentence or clause.

The possessive pronouns are: my, mine, his, her, hers, its, our, ours, your, yours, their, theirs.

We

need some examples.

The bag is mine - it’s my bag, have you done your homework?

This is our house - this house is ours, that is their car - that car is theirs.

personal pronouns sre used to replace a person or people in a sentence but they can also be used to represent animals, objects, or ideas.

They can be the subject or object.

Some examples:

You drank my beer.

He helped Susie with her coat.

We will win the cup.

My team is unbeatable.

Reflexive pronouns.

These are used in place of a person or a thing that is both the subject and object of the same verb.

I think we need some examples to show what we mean.

I saw myself in the mirror, we heard ourselves singing.

So as we can see, in both of these cases, the same person in the first one, I, I was the one who is doing the seeing and I was the one who was seen.

Iin the second example, we were the people singing and we were the people who heard the singing.

However, he heard ourselves singing is incorrect because is a different subject and object.

The subject

is he and we were the ones who were singing.

Correct would be, he heard us singing.

The full list of reflexive pronouns are: myself, yourself, himself, herself, itself, oneself, ourselves, yourselves, themselves.

Reflexive pronouns are never used as the subject - they only act as the object and only when the person or thing has been used as the subject.

Here are some incorrect examples: myself saw me in the mirror.

You can’t do this.

You have to have the reflexive part as the object so correct would be.

I saw myself

in the mirror.

Ourselves heard us singing.

Again we have to change this too we heard ourselves singing.

Intensive pronouns are used to emphasize the subject in a sentence.

They are not the object of an action and they look very similar to reflexive pronouns that we’ve just seen.

Some examples:

I made that cake myself.

I could just say, I made that cake.

But by saying I made that cake myself is emphasized the fact that I did it.

You told me the location yourself.

Again, we could just say, you told me the location but in this particular case, it looks like something went wrong and I’m saying you told me the location yourself - I mean you told me.

The president himself wrote me a letter, emphasizes that the president wrote me a letter.

Demonstrative pronouns are used to replace nouns that are close by.

So, this or these.

Or they used to replace nouns that are far away, that and those.

They usually require context to identify the nouns that they’re replacing.

Here are some examples: I made this cake myself.

So the

cake maybe is in my hand or just in front of me and I can say this cake.

The one near me.

You will like these cookies.

Again, I’ve probably got a plateful of cookies and I’m talking about these ones.

That is Susie over there.

So Susie is not nearby.

She’s maybe on the other side of the room and you’re pointing her out.

I like those houses.

Again, the houses are further away.

So we used those,

not these.

Interrogated pronouns.

These are used in questions to replace nouns.

They can be the subject or object in a sentence or clause.

They can be used in direct, indirect, or reported questions.

The main interrogative pronouns are: who, whom, whose, which, what.

Some examples: who is coming to the party tonight?

as a direct question.

Could you tell me whose these are?

is the indirect question.

A reported question,

She wants to know which is correct.

and an indirect question to give emphasis.

You’re wearing what to the party?

Someone has decided what they’re to wear to the party is not a good idea and they’re kind of emphasizing you’re wearing what?

You will notice in the previous examples, there’s no examples with whom.

We’ll just explain this quickly why.

The difference between who and whom.

So who is used for the subject in a sentence and whom is used for the object and there’s an easy trick to decide which is which, is you associate who with he and whom to him.

So we see the m on whom and him - they match.

Here’s some examples.

Who is coming to the party tonight?

He is coming.

To whom do these shoes belong?

They belong to him.

So the first example is, he is coming, so we say who.

In the second example, they belong to him, so we have to say whom.

However, the use of whom sounds very archaic and old fashioned these days and strange.

Linguists are in agreement that whom will probably disappear entirely within the next hundred years and they will just use who for both cases.

So they will say who do these shoes belong to?

And people say that now.

So a hundred years is probably quite a sort of a long estimate.

And the time it would take to disappear it could be a lot shorter Indefinite pronouns are placed in the same location as the noun it replaces.

They do not refer to

a specific noun and can be formed with variations of: any, some, every, and no.

Look at each of those in turn.

Indefinite Pronouns with any.

These refer to indefinite and incomplete quantities and are used in questions where the answer is generally not known.

And are used with not to emphasize negative sentences.

So here’s some examples.

Do they have any children?

Are you going anywhere nice on your holidays?

She doesn’t want any cake.

She doesn’t want anything to do with him.

Indefinite pronouns with some.

These refer to indefinite or incomplete quantities and are used in questions where you think you know the answer.

Also used in questions to ask for or offer something and we’ll see some examples.

We drank some beer last night.

We don’t know exactly how many.

Someone’s been sleeping in my bed.

Great quote from Goldilocks and the Three Bears.

Are you going somewhere nice on your holidays?

Would you like some tea?

Definite pronouns with every.

Refers to plurals but are treated and considered to be singular.

They refer

to a group of people, things, or places.

So the group is the singular part.

Here are some examples.

We can start-

everybody is here.

Please note,

Everybody is here.

Not everybody are here.

We’re talking the group.

Everybody.

It will be a big party everyone is invited.

Again everyone is invited.

They lost everything in the fire.

I can’t find my phone I’ve looked everywhere for it.

Indefinite pronouns with no.

Again refer to plurals but are considered singular.

They refer to an absence of people, things, or places.

Here are some examples.

She’s very lonely - nobody visits her.

Again, it’s singular nobody visits not nobody visit her.

We made all that food and no one came.

No one here is spelled as two separate words you can hyphenate the two but please don’t put them together.

This town is dull - nothing ever happens here.

There was nowhere to park the car.

Indefinite pronouns placement.

They are placed in the same location as the noun or nouns that they replace.

And here are some examples to illustrate this.

I won’t tell Paul what you did.

I won’t tell anyone what you did.

So the same location is used.

He gave me a present.

He gave me something.

We bought the food there.

We bought everything there.verything there.hey are placed in the same location as the noun or nouns that they replace.

And here are some examples to illustrate this.

I won’t tell Paul what you did.

I won’t tell anyone what you did.

So the same location is used.

He gave me a present.

He gave me something.

We bought the food there.

We bought everything there.