Personal Pronouns, Possessive Pronouns, Reflexive Pronouns
Pronouns
In grammar, a pronoun is defined as a word or phrase that may be substituted for a noun or noun phrase, which once replaced, is known as the pronoun’s antecedent. How is this possible ? In a nutshell, it’s because pronouns can do everything that nouns can do. A pronoun can act as a subject, direct object, indirect object, object of the preposition, and more.
Without pronouns, we’d have to keep on repeating nouns, and that would make our speech and writing repetitive, not to mention cumbersome. Most pronouns are very short words. Examples include
Personal Pronouns
A pronoun is a word or form that we can use instead of a noun or noun phrase.
Personal pronouns are used to represent the number of people (I/we), gender (he/she), person(I/you) and case (we/us).
There are two types of personal pronouns : subject and object.
- Subject pronouns
Pronouns that are the subject of the sentence are called subject pronouns. These are
I
- I love learning English!
You
- You are my best student.
She
- She has a nice voice.
He
- He forgot his textbook.
It
- It was on the table.
We
- We have to leave soon.
They
- They all cleaned up together.
- Object pronouns
Object pronouns are used when the person or thing is the object of the sentence or clause.
Me
- Can they hear me ?
You
- I will wait for you.
Her
- What's wrong with her ?
Him
- Mary said she wants to marry him.
It
- Who broke it ?
Us
- She will email us tomorrow.
You
- Is anyone sitting next to you ?
Them
- I will take them.
Possessive Pronouns
A pronoun is a word that replaces a noun in a sentence, making the subject a person
or a thing. Possessive pronouns are pronouns that demonstrate ownerships.
Possessive Pronouns: Used in Sentences
Possessive pronouns include my, mine, our, ours, its, his, her, hers, their, theirs,
your and yours - all words that demonstrate ownership.
Here are some examples of possessive pronouns used in sentences :
- The kids are yours and mine.
- The house is theirs and its paint is flaking.
- The money was really theirs for the taking.
- We shall finally have what is rightfully ours.
- Their mother gets along well with yours.
- What's mine is yours, my friend.
- The dog is mine.
- The cat is yours.
- The ring is hers.
- The bag is theirs.
Possessive Adjectives with Gerunds
One thing that can be confusing is the use of possessive adjectives with gerunds.
Look at this sentence:
I couldn’t take him griping anymore.
What couldn’t I take anymore, “him” or the “griping”? The sentence is ambiguous.
The correct way is to use a possessive pronoun. Here is the correct sentence:
I couldn’t take his griping anymore.
A few more examples like this are :
- Your taking the prize was a nice surprise.
- The children make their beds without my asking them to.
- Their singing inspired us.
- I so appreciated his helping out.
- Her coming to us was the right thing to do.
- I appreciate your understanding of the matter.
- I feel bad at his missing this opportunity.
- Their mocking of him was inappropriate.
- I loved listening to his singing.
Reflexive Pronouns
A reflexive pronoun is a type of pronoun that is preceded by the adverb, adjective, pronoun, or noun to which it refers, so long as that antecedent is located within the same clause.
In English grammar, a reflexive pronoun indicates that the person who is realizing the action of the verb is also the recipient of the action. While this might seem strange at first glance, the following examples of reflexive pronouns and the accompanying list of reflexive pronouns will help you gain thorough understanding. In fact, you will probably notice that you yourself use reflexive pronouns frequently when speaking or writing.
Examples of Reflexive Pronouns
In the following examples of reflexive pronouns, the reflexive pronoun in each sentence is italicized.
- I was in a hurry, so I washed the car myself.
- You’re going to have to drive yourself to school today.
- He wanted to impress her, so he baked a cake himself.
- Jennifer does chores herself because she doesn’t trust others to do them right.
- That car is in a class all by itself.
- We don’t have to go out; we can fix dinner ourselves.
- You are too young to go out by yourselves.
- The actors saved the local theatre money by making costumes themselves.
reference :
http://www.gingersoftware.com/content/grammar-rules/pronouns-2/
http://www.ecenglish.com/learnenglish/lessons/personal-pronouns-0
http://examples.yourdictionary.com/examples-of-possessive-pronouns.html
http://www.gingersoftware.com/content/grammar-rules/reflexive-pronouns/
