Personal Pronouns from the Index
Unlike English nouns, which usually do not change form except for the
addition of an -s ending to create the plural or the apostrophe +
s to create the possessive, personal pronouns (which stand for persons
or things) change form according to their various uses within a sentence.
Thus I is used as the subject of a sentence (I am happy.), me
is used as an object in various ways (He hit me. He gave me a book. Do this
for me.), and my is used as the possessive form (That's my car.) The
same is true of the other personal pronouns: the singular you and he/she/it
and the plural we, you, and they. These forms are called cases. An
easily printable chart is available that shows the various
Cases of the
Personal Pronouns.
Personal pronouns can also be characterized or distinguished by person.
First person refers to the speaker(s) or writer(s) ("I" for singular,
"we" for plural). Second person refers to the person or people being
spoken or written to ("you" for both singular and plural). Third person
refers to the person or people being spoken or written about ("he," "she,"
and "it" for singular, "they" for plural). The person of a pronoun is also
demonstrated in the chart
Cases of the
Personal Pronouns. As you will see there, each person can change
form, reflecting its use within a sentence. Thus, "I" becomes "me" when used
as an object ("She left me") and "my" when used in its possessive role
(That's my car"); "they" becomes "them" in object form ("I like them") and
"their" in possessive ("That's just their way").
When a personal pronoun is connected by a conjunction to another noun or
pronoun, its case does not change. We would write "I am taking a
course in Asian history"; if Talitha is also taking that course, we would
write "Talitha and I are taking a course in Asian history." (Notice
that Talitha gets listed before "I" does. This is one of the few ways in
which English is a "polite" language.) The same is true when the object form
is called for: "Professor Vendetti gave all her books to me"; if
Talitha also received some books, we'd write "Professor Vendetti gave all
her books to Talitha and me." For more on this, see
cases of
pronouns.
| If
one is interested in the uses of one as a numerical and
impersonal pronoun, one should click the enter button. |
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When a pronoun and a noun are combined (which will happen with the plural
first- and second-person pronouns), choose the case of the pronoun that
would be appropriate if the noun were not there.
- We students are demanding that the
administration give us two hours for lunch.
- The administration has managed to put us
students in a bad situation.
With the second person, we don't really have a problem
because the subject form is the same as the object form, "you":
- "You students are demanding too much."
- "We expect you students to behave like adults."
Among the possessive pronoun forms, there is also what is called the
nominative possessive: mine, yours, ours, theirs.
- Look at those cars. Theirs is really ugly; ours is
beautiful.
- This new car is mine.
- Mine is newer than yours.
