Pronouns

What is a PRONOUN?Pronouns stand in willingly when nouns don’t want to hang around sounding repetitive.

The noun or noun phrase whose bidding the pronoun does is called the antecedent. Because it goes (ced-) before (ante-) the pronoun in the paragraph.

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Unlike nouns – a list of words forever morphing and mutating - the list of pronouns is finite and predictable, subdividing neatly and changed only slightly since the days of Shakespeare.Personal Pronouns:(Subjective) I, you, he, she, it, we, they(Objective) me, you, him, her, it, us, them“I come to bury Caesar, not to praise him.”

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Certain personal pronouns (my, yours, his, her, its, our, their)act as adjectives since in indicating possessions they modify nouns:

“Friends, Romans, countrymen, lend me your ears.”

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Demonstrative pronouns (this, that, these, those)direct attention to another word or phrase .

They can be nouns: “This was the most unkindest cut of all.”They can also be adjectives:“If we do meet again, why, we shall smile / If not, why then, this parting was well made.”

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Relative pronouns (that, what, whatever, which, whichever, who, whoever, whom, whomever, whose) introduce a clause that wants to hitch itself firmly to its antecedent: “The evil that men do lives after them.”

The antecedent for a relative pronoun can be a noun, a phrase, a clause, or a sentence, as in:“Let but the Commons here this testament / Which, pardon me, I do not mean to read.”

Sometimes the antecedent can even be a whole paragraph.

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Indefinite pronouns (all, another, any, anybody, anything, both, each, either, every, everybody, everyone, everything, few, many, most, much, neither, no one, nobody, none, one, several, some, somebody, someone, something, such) also stand in for people or things, but not necessarily ones specifically named by an antecedent:“If any, speak; for him I have offended.”

Indefinite pronouns move around in sentences with abandon and can also play the role of adjectives. Take care to see indefinite pronouns for what they are because they make subject-verb agreement quite dicey.

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Interrogative pronouns (what, which, who, whom, whose) quick off questions:“What withholds you then to mourn for him?”

Expletive pronouns are less profane than they sound, stepping into a sentence as subject when the juice of the sentence lurks in the predicate. (It , there)“There is no terror, Cassius, in your threats.”

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Reflexive pronouns (myself, yourself, himself, herself, itself, ourselves, yourselves, themselves ) allow a person or thing to be both the subject and the object of a sentence :

“I have o’ershot myself to tell you of Caesar’s will.”

Or they can add emphasis. Mark Antony did not need emphasis in his famous speech – that should tell you something.

The Tweeted Haiku Contest on National Grammar Day 2012 – turned up some pretty funny 5-7-5 poems. A favorite, tweeted by Rachel Cooper, dealt with pronouns:

First person: I love.Second person: You love me.Third person: Uh, oh.

I Tweet, You Tweet, We all Tweet

Consider the following Bob Dylan lyrics:

How do the pronouns affect the lyrics?

Bob Dylan

I got a bird that whistlesI got a bird that singsBut I ain’ a-got CorrinaLife don’t mean a thing

Come gather ‘round peopleWherever you roamAnd admit that the watersAround you have grown

Here comes the story of the HurricaneThe man the authorities came to blameFor something’ that he never donePut in a prison cell, but one time he could-a-beenThe champion of the world

Write a 6 word story using either first person, second person or third person pronouns. Write your final story in the box in “fancy” letters and illustration.

Assignment