PRONOUNS By Carol PRONOUNS The concept of pronouns

PRONOUNS By Carol

PRONOUNS The concept of pronouns includes relative, antecedent, demonstrative, intensive, indefinite, interrogative, object, and reflexive.

RELATIVE PRONOUNS Relative pronouns modify a word, phrase, or idea in the main clause. Examples of relative pronouns: who/whom, whoever/whomever, whose, that, which. Ex: The woman whom you’ve spoken to is my mother. That is my handwriting.

ANTECEDENT An antecedent is the word, phrase, or clause to which a pronoun refers, understood by the context. A pronoun must agree with its antecedent in three ways: Person (quality of being), number (the quality that distinguishes between singular and plural), and gender (male or female). Ex: If a person wants to succeed in life, he or she must… NON Ex: If a person wants to succeed in life, they must…

DEMONSTRATIVE The four demonstrative pronouns are: this, that, these, and those. Ex: This tastes good. These are bad times. That is amazing. Those are different. Note that demonstrative pronouns are different from demonstrative adjectives. The demonstrative pronoun acts as a pronoun and takes the place of a noun, whereas demonstrative adjectives describe which noun they’re talking about. Demonstrative adj. ex: This book is sad.

INTENSIVE Intensive pronouns are pronouns that end in –self/-selves. They are used to emphasize the subject of a sentence, and they usually come near the subject of the sentence. Examples of intensive pronouns: myself, yourself, herself, himself, themselves, etc. Ex: I myself am sick of the heat. The cat itself caught the mouse.

INDEFINITE Indefinite pronouns do not refer to any specific person, thing, or amount. Examples of indefinite pronouns: all, some, anyone, anybody, each, few, nobody, none, several, etc. Ex: You can give your pencil to someone. Nobody attended the party. Some thought the test was easy, whereas most thought it was difficult.

INTERROGATIVE Interrogative pronouns are pronouns used to ask questions. It represents things we don’t know (what we are asking the question about). Examples of interrogative pronouns: who, whom, which, what Ex: To whom did you give the gift? Who will write the story? What are you talking about?

OBJECT Object/objective pronouns function as the object of a verb or preposition, as distinguished from a subject/subject pronoun, which is the subject of a verb. Examples of object pronouns: me, you, him, her, it, us, them Ex: She begged me to take her with me. She always writes emails to us.

REFLEXIVE Reflexive pronouns refer back to the subject. Examples of reflexive pronouns: my/your/him/her/it/our/them – self/selves Ex: I bought myself a shirt. The girl talked to herself. He got himself some food.

CITATIONS "Welcome to the Purdue OWL. " Purdue OWL: Relative Pronouns. The Writing Lab, 2013. Web. 10 Dec. 2013. "Pronoun Antecedent Agreement. " Pronoun Antecedent Agreement. N. p. , 1999. Web. 09 Dec. 2013. "Demonstrative Pronouns. " Demonstrative Pronouns. English Club, 2013. Web. 10 Dec. 2013. "Reflexive and Intensive Pronouns. " Reflexive and Intensive Pronouns. N. p. , n. d. Web. 10 Dec. 2013. "Indefinite Pronouns. " Indefinite Pronouns. English. Club, 2013. Web. 10 Dec. 2013. "Interrogative Pronouns. " Interrogative Pronouns. English. Club, 2013. Web. 10 Dec. 2013. "GRAMMAR. " English Grammar. Myenglishpages. com, 2013. Web. 10 Dec. 2013.