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Tuesday, April 29, 2014

What is pronouns?

Pronouns

Pronouns are a moderately small, closed class of words that capacity in the spot of nouns or noun phrases. They incorporate personal pronouns, demonstrative pronouns, relative pronouns, interrogative pronouns, and some others, mainly indefinite pronouns.

Personal pronouns

The personal pronouns of current Standard English, and the comparing possessive structures, are as takes after:
   
Name
Nominative
Oblique
Reflexive
Possessive determiner
Possessive pronoun
1st person singular number
I
me
myself
my
mine
2nd person singular number
you
you
yourself
your
yours
2nd person plural number
you
Y’all(you all)
yourselves
your
yours
3rd person singular number
she, he, they, it
her, him, they, it
herself, himself, them self, itself
her, his, their, its
hers, his, theirs, its(rare)
1st person plural number
we
us
ourselves
our
ours
3rd person plural number
they
them
themselves
their
theirs

The second-person forms such as you are used with both singular and plural number. In the Southern United States, y'all (you all) is used as a plural format, and various other phrases such as you guys are used in other places. An archaic set of pronouns used for singular reference is thou, thee, thyself, thy, thine, which are still used in religious services and can be seen in older works, such as Shakespeare's - in such texts, the word you is used as a plural form. You can also be used as an indefinite pronoun, referring to a person in simply compared to the more formal alternative, one (reflexive oneself, possessive one’s).

The third-person singular forms are divided as expressed by the sex of the referent. For instance, she can be used to refer to a female person, sometimes a female animal, and sometimes an object to which female characteristics are attributed, such as a ship or a country. A male person, and   sometimes a male animal, is referred to using he. In other cases it can be used. The word it can also be used as a dummy subject, in sentences like It is going to be sunny this afternoon.

The third-person plural forms such as they are sometimes used with singular reference, as a gender-neutral pronoun, as in each employee should ensure they tidy their desk. In spite of its long history, this use is some of the time acknowledged ungrammatical.

The possessive determiners such as my are used as determiners together with nouns, as in my old man, some of his friends. The second possessive forms like mine are used when they do not qualify a noun: as pronouns, as in mine is larger than yours, and as predicates, as in that one is mine.

Demonstrative and interrogative pronouns

The demonstrative pronouns of English are this (plural these), and that (plural those), as in these were good, I like that. Notice that all four words can also be used as determiners (followed by a noun), as in that cars. They can also then form the alternative pronominal expressions this / that one, these / those ones.

The interrogative pronouns are who, what, and which (all of them can take the suffix-ever for emphasis). The pronoun who refers to a person or people; it has an oblique form whom (though in informal contexts this is usually replaced by who), and a possessive form (pronoun or determiner) whose. The pronoun what refers to things or abstracts. The word which is used to ask about alternatives from what is seen as a closed set: which (of the discs) do you like best? (It can also be an interrogative determiner: which disc?

This can form the alternative pronominal expressions which one and which ones.) Which, who, and what can be either singular or plural, although who and what often take a singular verb regardless of any supposed number.

All the interrogative pronouns can also be used as relative pronouns. Details information is 
in below….

Relative pronouns

The main relative pronouns in English are who (with its derived forms whom and whose), which, and that.
The relative pronoun which refers to things rather than persons, as in the sari, which used to be red, is faded. For persons, who is used (the woman who saw me was tall). The oblique case form of who is whom, as in the woman whom I saw was tall, although in informal registers who is commonly used in the place of whom.

The possessive form of who is whose (the girl whose car is missing ....); however the use of whose is not restricted to persons (one can say an idea whose time has over).

The word that as a relative pronoun is normally found only in restrictive relative clauses (unlike which and who, which can be used in both restrictive and nonrestrictive clauses). It can refer to either persons or things, and cannot follow a preposition. Such as, one can say the song that (or which) I listened to Friday, but the song to which (not to that) I listened Friday. The relative pronoun that is usually pronounced with a reduced vowel, and hence differently from the demonstrative that. If that is not the subject of the relative clause, it can be omitted (the song I listened to Friday).

The word what can be used to form a free relative clause – one that has no antecedent and that serves as a complete noun phrase in itself, as in Rahim likes what I like. The words whatever and whichever can be used similarly, in the role of either pronouns (whatever I like) or determiners (whatever book I like).When referring to persons, who/whoever and whom/whomever can be used in a similar way (but not as determiners).

“There” as pronoun

The word there is used as a pronoun in some sentences, playing the role of a dummy subject, normally of an intransitive verb. The "logical subject" of the verb then shows up as a supplement after the verb.

This use of there occurs most commonly with forms of the verb be in existential clauses, to refer to the presence or existence of something. Such as There is a football; There are two books on the table; There have been a lot of troubles lately. It can also be used with other verbs: There exist two major variants; There occurred a very strange accident.

The dummy subject takes the number (singular or plural) of the logical subject (complement), hence it takes a plural verb if the complement is plural. In colloquial English, however, the contraction there's is often used where there are would be expected.

The dummy subject can undergo inversion, Is there a exam today? and Never has there been a woman such as this. It can also appear without a corresponding logical subject, in short sentences and question tags: There wasn't an accident, was there? There was.

The word there in such sentences has in some cases been broke down as an adverb, or as a dummy predicate, rather than as a pronoun. However, its distinguishing proof as a pronoun is most reliable with its conduct in modified sentences and inquiry labels as portrayed previously.

Because the word there can also be a deictic adverb, a sentence like There is a pond could have either of two meanings: "a pond exists" (with there as a pronoun), and "a pond is in that place" (with there as an adverb). In speech, the adverbial there would be given stress, while the pronoun might not – actually the pronoun is regularly maintained as a feeble structure.

Other pronouns

Other pronouns in English are often identical in form to determiners (particularly quantifiers), such as many, a little, etc. Sometimes the pronoun form is different, as with none, nothing,
everyone, somebody, etc. Many examples are listed at Indefinite pronoun. Another indefinite pronoun is one(with its reflexive form oneself and possessive one's), which is a more formal elective to bland you.


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