pronoun, a word that replaces anoun ornoun phrase and one of eightparts of speech in Englishgrammar. Pronouns are used to avoid repetition of nouns and can help sentences be moresuccinct. There are several different types of pronouns, which are described in detail below.

Personal pronouns

Personal pronouns refer to the speaker or the person or thing the speaker is talking to or about. The form of apersonal pronoun is determined by:

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Austronesian languages: Pronouns

• Person: Personal pronouns refer to the speaker (first person), the person to whom the speaker is talking (second person), or the person, animal, or thing that is being talked about (third person). In English first-person pronouns (when they are the subject of a sentence) areI andwe. The second-person pronoun isyou, and third-person pronouns arehe,she,it, andthey. Like many languages, English only marks gender on pronouns in the third person. Unlike most other languages that mark gender on these pronouns, English lacks grammatical gender, and the determination of which pronoun to use is based on the logical gender of a person or animal, and gender is not marked for the pluralthey. (For a more in-depth discussion of gendered pronouns,seegender pronoun.) The masculinehe is used for men, boys, and (sometimes) male animals, while the feminineshe is used for women, girls, and (sometimes) female animals. Theneuterit is generally used for nonhuman living things and inanimate objects. There are exceptions to these rules: some objects such as ships are frequently referred to asshe rather thanit; althoughit is generally considered offensive when used in relation to humans, it may used for infants and other young children without insult.

  • The boy hurries to school becausehe is running late.
  • The woman opened the door soshe could go inside.
  • The cat meowed beforeit jumped on the couch.
• Number: Pronouns are eithersingular and refer to one person or thing orplural and refer to multiple people or things.I,he,she, andit are all singular, whilewe andthey are usually plural.You is both singular and plural, as contemporary English has lost the singular formthou (although it is retained in some religious contexts).We as singular (the so-called royalwe) is used in certaincontexts.They is also used in the singular for a person whose gender is unknown to the speaker or who has anonbinarygender identity.
• Case: There are three cases that affect personal pronouns in English: the subjective (or nominative), the objective (or accusative), and the possessive (or genitive). Pronouns in the subjective (I,we,he) and objective cases (me,us,him) are the subjects and objects of a sentence, respectively. Possessive pronouns show belonging or close association. Some possessive pronouns are frequently also categorized asadjectives, includingmy,our,your,his,her,its, andtheir. These words modify the noun that is possessed:

  • This ismy apple.
  • This isyour book.
  • This isher car.
  • This istheir dog.

  Others, such asmine,ours,yours,hers, andtheirs, stand in apposition to the nouns they possess:

  • This apple ismine.
  • This book isyours.
  • This car ishers.
  • This dog istheirs.

The different forms of personal pronouns are summarized in the tables below. A number of examples follow each table.

• I asked the girl to giveme the pencil because it wasmine.
• We bought some markers.
• They sold the markers tous.
• The markers areours.

In the following examples, note that the sentence by itself does not indicate how many people went to the park, for example. Additionalcontext is needed to determine ifyou refers to a single listener or multiple listeners.

• You went to the park.
• The boy gaveyou the eraser.
• These notebooks areyours.

• He gave the book toher.
• She askedhim to handher the book.
• The book ishers, but the folder ishis.
• They said that the crayons weretheirs.

Impersonal uses of personal pronouns

The second-person pronounyou and the third-person pronounit can be used to refer to a general subject.You may be used in a general sense to mean “a person” or “someone”:

• You have to turn the screw counterclockwise to unscrew it.
• You can check out books from the library.
• You may not smoke on an airplane.

It is also frequently as the subject of an impersonal verb:

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• It rains.
• It is morning.
• It is OK.

Reflexive and emphatic pronouns

Reflexive pronouns are used when theverb in a sentence acts on the subject.

• I dressedmyself.
• You hurtyourself playing basketball.
• You taughtyourselves to sew.
• He cuthimself while chopping vegetables.
• She burnedherself on the stove.
• The bird washeditself in the bird bath.
• They introducedthemselves to the class.

Emphatic pronouns look the same as reflexive pronouns but are used to stress the role of the subject in the sentence.

• I went to the storemyself.
• He told mehimself.
• Theythemselves wrote the note.

Relative pronouns

Relative pronouns are pronouns that introduce relative clauses. They often, but not always, closely follow the noun they replace, called theantecedent. Relative pronouns in English arewho,whom,whose,that, andwhich.Who is the only relative pronoun that has different forms depending on the case. The subjective form iswho, withwhom andwhose as the objective and possessive cases, respectively. All three forms can be used in the singular or plural:

• This is the girlwho gave him the books.
• This is the boy towhom she gave the books.
• These are the studentswhose books were loaned.

Which andthat usually refer to things or ideas, and each have only one form.Which can be the object of apreposition (e.g.of which,for which,in which), whilethat cannot serve this function, althoughwhose is sometimes used to meanof which.Which andthat are both singular and plural:

• The carthat drives on the road is fast.
• The carsthat drive on the road are fast.
• The car,which drives on the road, is fast.
• The cars,which drive on the road, are fast
• This is the notebookin which he wrote his essay.

Demonstrative pronouns

Demonstrative pronouns point to the noun that they replace. There are fourdemonstrative pronouns in English:this,that,these, andthose.This andthat are singular and refer to things relatively near to or far from the speaker, respectively.These is the plural ofthis andthose is the plural ofthat:

• This is my dog.
• That is your car.
• These are his cats.
• Those are her pens.

Interrogative pronouns

Interrogative pronouns are used to ask questions. They arewho,whom,whose,what, andwhich.Who,whom, andwhose ask questions about people, withwho being the subjective form,whom being the objective, andwhose being the possessive:

• Who is at the door?
• Towhom did you give the package?
• Withwhom did the man speak?
• Whose is the dog?

What andwhich are used to ask questions about things or ideas.What asks more general questions, whilewhich asks the listener to select within a defined set:

• What did the teacher say?
• Which bag is the notebook in?
• What books do you like?
• Which of these books do you like?

Indefinite pronouns

Indefinite pronouns are those that do not refer to specific people or things. Some of them are always singular and fall into one of three categories: those that end in-one, those that end in-body, and those that end in-thing:

• Nobody is in the room.
• Someone is in the room.
• Anything could be in the room.

Otherindefinite pronouns are always plural. These areseveral,few,both, andmany:

• Several of my friends are going to the mall.
• Afew of her cats like going outside in the winter.
• Both of my parents are at work.

Some indefinite pronouns can be singular or plural. These includeall,any,more,most, andsome:

• All is well that ends well.
• All are welcome.
• Some like it hot.

Distributive pronouns

Distributive pronouns refer to people or things separately or one at a time and are always grammatically singular. The English-language distributive pronouns areeach,either, andneither:

• Each of the boys took a pen from the jar.
• My brother and my sister just left.Neither of them are home now.
• Either of you can have the last apple.