Personal Pronouns

4 Key excerpts on "Personal Pronouns"

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  eBook - ePub

  Easy Learning Spanish Grammar

  • Collins Dictionaries(Author)
  • 2016(Publication Date)
  • Collins

    (Publisher)

  Pronouns What is a pronoun? A pronoun is a word you use instead of a noun, when you do not need or want to name someone or something directly, for example, it , you , none . ➤ There are several different types of pronoun: ● Personal Pronouns such as I, you, he, her and they, which are used to refer to you, the person you are talking to, or other people and things. They can be either subject pronouns ( I, you, he and so on) or object pronouns ( him, her, them, and so on). ● Possessive pronouns like mine and yours, which show who someone or something belongs to. ● Indefinite pronouns like someone or nothing, which refer to people or things in a general way without saying exactly who or what they are. ● Relative pronouns like who , which or that, which link two parts of a sentence together. ● Interrogative pronouns like who , what or which, which are used in questions. ● Demonstrative pronouns like this or those, which point things or people out. ● Reflexive pronouns, a type of object pronoun that forms part of Spanish reflexive verbs like lavarse (meaning to wash ) or llamarse (meaning to be called ). ➪ For more information on Reflexive verbs , see page 91. ➤ Pronouns often stand in for a noun to save repeating it. I finished my homework and gave it to my teacher. Do you remember Jack? I saw him at the weekend. ➤ Word order with Personal Pronouns is usually different in Spanish and English.

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  42 Pronouns Personal Pronouns: subject What is a subject pronoun? A subject pronoun is a word such as I, he, she and they , that carries out the action expressed by the verb. Pronouns stand in for nouns when it is clear who or what is being talked about, for example, My brother isn’t here at the moment. He’ll be back in an hour.

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  French Grammar and Usage

  • Roger Hawkins, Richard Towell(Authors)
  • 2015(Publication Date)
  • Routledge

    (Publisher)

  3 Personal and imPersonal Pronouns

  Personal Pronouns are forms that are used in place of a noun phrase when that phrase is already known from the situation, linguistic or contextual. Personal Pronouns have different (but overlapping) forms depending on whether they are subjects, direct objects, indirect objects or objects of a preposition. They agree in person and number with the noun phrase for which they stand.

  Personal Pronouns take their name from the fact that they can be classified as first person (je, me, moi, nous ), second person (tu, te, toi, vous ) or third person (il, elle, lui, les; ils, leur, eux, elles ). They do not necessarily refer to people; e.g. elle is a personal pronoun, but it refers to the inanimate émission in: elle est intéressante, cette émission ‘That programme’s interesting’.

  Personal Pronouns contrast with imPersonal Pronouns, which do not refer to other noun phrases. An impersonal pronoun (usually in subject position) does not stand for any person, place, thing, idea, etc. il, ce, cela, ça can be imPersonal Pronouns in French: e.g. Il pleut ‘It’s raining’; Il est tard ‘It’s late’; Ça me fait peur d’y aller la nuit ‘It scares me to go there at night’.

  Neutral pronouns (ce, cela, ça ) normally refer to events, actions, states or general classes of people or things, e.g. Vous viendrez dîner ce soir. C’est prévu . ‘Come to dinner this evening. It’s all taken care of’ (C’ refers to the event ‘Come to dinner’).

  Stressed pronouns (moi, toi, lui, elle, soi, nous, vous, eux, elles ) are used for emphasis and also appear after prepositions.

  Demonstrative pronouns (celui, celle, ceux, celles , which can have the suffix -ci or -là

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  A Comprehensive and Comparative Grammar of English Creoles

  • Anand Syea(Author)
  • 2023(Publication Date)
  • Routledge

    (Publisher)

  4 Pronouns

  DOI: 10.4324/9781003458289-4

  4.1 Introduction

  This chapter discusses different types of pronouns in English creoles. Section 4.2 provides a brief overview of pronouns in English. Section 4.3 then focuses on different types of pronouns in English creoles. Section 4.3.1 looks at Personal Pronouns, Section 4.3.2 at demonstrative pronouns, Section 4.3.3 at possessive pronouns, Section 4.3.4 at reflexive pronouns, Section 4.3.5 at indefinite pronouns, and Section 4.3.6 at interrogative and relative pronouns. Section 4.4 provides a brief summary and a few concluding remarks.

  4.2 Pronouns in English

  The traditional definition of a pronoun is that it is a word that stands in the place of a noun. In an example like Mary saw Bill and she saw him, the pronoun she replaces Mary and the pronoun him replaces Bill. Pronouns, however, stand not only in the place of nouns but also in the place of noun phrases. Thus, in an example like The girl met the boy and she met him, the pronoun she replaces not girl but the girl and the pronoun him replaces not boy but the boy.

  Pronouns are of different types. These include personal, possessive, demonstrative, reflexive, indefinite, relative, and interrogative pronouns.

  Personal Pronouns refer to first, second, and third person pronouns like I, you, he, she, it, we, they. The pronoun you can be both singular and plural. The pronouns I, he, she, and it are singular while we and they are plural. Personal Pronouns in English, unlike nouns (genitive such as Mary’s excepted), display different morphological (case) forms: I, he, she, we, you, they are nominative whereas me, him, her, us, you, them are accusative/oblique and my, his, her, its, our, your, and their are possessive. Personal Pronouns display their nominative form when they are the subject of finite clauses e.g., We went for a long walk, their accusative form when they are the object of verbs e.g., Bill met us at the station or the subject of non-finite clauses e.g. Bill expected him to stay in Paris, their oblique form when they are the object of preposition e.g., Bill waved at us, and their possessive/genitive form when they occur as a determiner e.g., Bill met our friends. Beside encoding person, number (singular and plural) and case information, Personal Pronouns also encode gender, but this is biological gender, and it is restricted to the third person singular he (masculine) and she

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  Polish: A Comprehensive Grammar

  • Iwona Sadowska(Author)
  • 2012(Publication Date)
  • Routledge

    (Publisher)

  Chapter 5 Pronouns

  5.1   Overview

  “Pronoun” in Polish is zaimek. Pronouns are used to point out the identity of the speaker, the addressee or other entities. They can be substituted for nouns and noun phrases.

  Ojciec mówił do dzieci, ale one go nie słuchały.

  ‘Father was talking to the children, but they were not listening to him.’

  Studenci studiów zaocznych narzekają, że tylko oni płacą za studia. (oni refers to the whole phrase Studenci studiów zaocznych, not only studenci).

  ‘Part-time students complain that only they pay for school.’

  Dzwoniłam do tej firmy kilka razy.

  ‘I called that firm several times.’

  Adam jest strasznym egoistą i myśli tylko o sobie.

  ‘Adam is a horrible egoist and thinks only about himself.’

  Some pronouns, e.g., possessive and demonstrative, decline like adjectives, others have a specific declension, e.g., Personal Pronouns. The possessive pronouns jego ‘his,’ jej ‘her,’ ich ‘their’ have one form regardless of number, class and case.

  5.2   Personal Pronouns

  Personal Pronouns (“I,” “you,” “she,” etc.), regardless of their name, can refer to nouns and noun phrases that denote persons, animals, and objects.

  Książki leżą na stole i pod nim.

  ‘[The] books are on the table and under it.’ (nim refers to the table)

  Wszyscy chcieli psa, a teraz ja muszę wyprowadzać go na spacer.

  ‘Everyone wanted a dog, but now I have to take him for a walk.’

  (him refers to the dog)

  5.2.1   Declension

  Like in English, the declension of Personal Pronouns in Polish is very specific. The nominative case differs from other cases, e.g., ja ‘I’ and mnie ‘me’; my ‘we’ and nas

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