*Pronouns

*You wouldn’t want to say, “Alex said Alex lost Alex’s watch.” You’d say instead, “Alex said he lost his watch.” The words he and his are called pronouns and are put in place of the noun Alex.

*Pronouns are words that stand for nouns or for words that take the place of nouns.

*Example: Michael said he lost his watch in the gym.

*He and his are standing in place of Michael.

*Antecedents are the nouns that the pronouns take the place of.

*Example: Michael said he lost his watch in the gym.

*Michael is the antecedent for the pronouns he and his.

See Exercise 11 on page 223

Common Pronouns:

He, she, himself, it, themselves, which, that, these, both, many, question words (who? what?)

*We are going to talk about 7 kinds of pronouns. The first is the most common, called the personal pronoun.

*Personal pronouns refer to yourself and the people and things around you.

Singular Plural

1st person (the person speaking)

I, me, my, mine We, us, our, ours

2nd person (the person spoken to)

You, your, yours You, your, yours

3rd person (the person, place, or thing spoken about)

He, him, his, she, her, hers, it, its

They, them, their, theirs

*Personal Pronoun Examples:

*Tom and Trish yelled, “Those are ours!”

*The personal pronoun is ours.

*Liz handed her brother his coat.

*The personal pronouns are her and his.

See exercise 13 on page 224

* A reflexive pronoun ends in –self or –selves to show that someone is doing an action to, for, or upon itself.

*Ex: Joy helped herself to some cake.

*An intensive pronoun also ends in –self or –selves, but it adds emphasis on a noun or pronoun in that sentence.

*Ms. McKenzie fixed the computer herself.

*Reflexive and Intensive Pronouns

Singular Plural

1st Person Myself Ourselves

2nd Person Yourself Yourselves

3rd Person Himself, herself, itself

Themselves

See exercise 14 on page 226

*A demonstrative pronoun directs attention to specific people, places, or things

*Ex: This is the person we want to hire.

Singular Plural

This, that These, those

*A relative pronoun begins a subordinate clause (extra info in a sentence) and connects it to the main part in the sentence.

*That, which, who, whom, whose

*Ex: We visited the farm, which is near Lexington.

*Interrogative pronouns are used to begin a question.

*What, which, who, whom, whose

*Ex: What do you mean?

See exercise 15 on page 228

*An indefinite pronoun refers to people, places, or things without specifying which ones.

*Some are: anybody, anyone, anything, everyone, everything, somebody, someone, both, many, all, most, none

*These usually don’t have antecedents!