LoginPersonal Pronouns
This comprehensive lesson covers Personal Pronouns in English with detailed examples and a quiz to test your knowledge.
What Are Personal Pronouns?
Personal pronouns are those that have a grammatical person. These pronouns refer to specific individuals or things and are used to replace nouns in a sentence.
Personal Pronouns: Characteristics
Each personal pronoun has a particular:
Grammatical Person
Grammatical person is related to the different ways the participant(s) in an event are referred to.
In English grammar, there are three distinct persons:
first-person: the participant is the speaker(s) → I, me, we
second-person: the participant is the addressee(s) → you, yourselves
third-person: the participant is the other(s) → he, her, himself, they, them
Grammatical Number
In English, first-, second-, and third-person pronouns are typically also divided into two groups:
singular forms → I, me, myself, she, him, itself
plural forms → we, us, yourselves, they, themselves
Grammatical Gender
Grammatical gender is a system in which nouns or pronouns are divided into different categories based on their gender value. Some languages, such as Spanish or French, have a grammatical gender system where nouns or pronouns are classified as masculine or feminine. While English does not have a grammatical gender system for nouns, it does have gender-specific forms for third-person pronouns.
Masculine → he, him, himself
Feminine → she, her, herself
Neutral → it, itself
Grammatical Case
The case of a noun or pronoun is that particular noun's or pronoun's relationship to other words in the sentence. In English, case applies only to pronouns.
Modern English has three cases for pronouns:
Nominative (also called subjective): used for the subject of a sentence or for predicate nominatives
Accusative (also called objective): used for the direct object of a verb or for the object of a preposition.
Genitive (also called possessive): used to show possession or ownership.
I am happy
'I' is the subject (nominative)
There's a table in the kitchen. The book is on it.
"it" is the object of the preposition (accusative)
That phone is "mine".
the phone belongs to me (possessive)
Personal Pronouns: Types
The basic types of personal pronouns of modern English are:
Object Pronouns
Object pronouns are personal pronouns that are used typically as a grammatical verb complement: the direct or indirect object of a verb, or the object of a preposition. In the table below, you can see the list of object personal pronouns:
Possessive Pronouns
Possessive pronouns are a type of personal pronoun that indicate ownership or possession of something by someone. They can be used to replace a noun phrase consisting of a possessive determiner (such as 'my,' 'your,' etc.) and a noun to make sentences more concise.
Possessive pronouns are often used to avoid repetition, especially when referring back to something that has already been mentioned. The following table displays a list of possessive pronouns and their respective possessive determiners in English:
possessive adjective | possessive pronoun | |
|---|---|---|
First-person (singular) | my | mine |
Second-person (singular) | your | yours |
Third-person (singular) | his/her/it | his/hers/its |
First-person (plural) | our | ours |
Second-person (plural) | your | yours |
Third-person (plural) | their | theirs |
Reflexive Pronouns
Reflexive pronouns are personal pronouns ending in -self or -selves that are used when the subject and the object of a sentence are the same. They can act as either direct objects or indirect objects. In the table below, you can see the list of reflexive personal pronouns:
Singular | Plural | |
|---|---|---|
First-person | ||
Second-person | ||
Third-person |
Archaic Pronouns
There are some archaic pronouns in English which were used in the past, but are now mostly replaced by standard pronouns. While these forms are no longer commonly used in modern English, they are commonly encountered in literature, historical documents, and some dialects.
Subjective | Objective | Possessive | Reflexive |
|---|---|---|---|
thou | thee | thine | thyself |
Review
Personal pronouns are words that are used to refer to a person, animal, or object in place of a noun. They can take on different forms depending on various factors such as their number (singular or plural), case, and gender.
Number refers to whether the pronoun is singular (referring to one person or thing) or plural (referring to multiple people or things). Case refers to the grammatical function of the pronoun in a sentence, such as whether it is the subject or object of a verb. Gender refers to the distinction between masculine, feminine, and neuter pronouns, although English only has gender-specific pronouns for people. The different types of personal pronouns in English are
Subject Pronouns
Object Pronouns
Possessive Pronouns
Reflexive Pronouns
Archaic Pronouns
Quiz:
Which sentence demonstrates the correct use of a reflexive pronoun?
I taught me how to play the piano.
I taught myself how to play the piano.
I taught my self how to play the piano.
I taught mine how to play the piano.
Sort the words to form a sentence using subject and object pronouns.
Match each incomplete sentence with the correct ending based on their pronoun usage.
Fill each blank with the appropriate personal pronoun. (There is one extra option.)
After the meeting, John said
would follow up on the action items.
You should be proud of
for completing the challenge.
The blue notebook on the desk is not my notebook; it is
.
We invited
to dinner, and they accepted the invitation.
Which of the following best describes the characteristics of personal pronouns in English?
They vary only by grammatical person and remain unchanged regardless of number.
They vary by grammatical person, number, gender, and case.
They have fixed forms that do not change based on their role in a sentence.
They have specific genders for all person and the different numbers.
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