What would you think if you heard something like this?
One day the doctor asked the doctor's assistant for the doctor's calendar. Then the doctor checked the doctor's calendar to see what appointments the doctor had that day. Then the doctor returned the doctor's calendar to the doctor's assistant for the doctor's assistant to use to schedule the doctor's patients' appointments.
It doesn't sound like we normally speak, does it? That's because this paragraph has no pronouns. We use pronouns to replace nouns to avoid unnecessary repetition.
One day the doctor asked her assistant, James, to hand her the appointment calendar. Then she checked it to see how many appointments she had that day. After that, she returned the calendar to James and asked him to use it to schedule her other patients' appointments.
That sounds a lot better.
Definition: The prefix pro means for or in place of. Pronouns stand in for or replace nouns. This lesson is about personal pronouns, which replace nouns that refer to people or things.
Personal pronouns have:
- Number: They are singular or plural.
- Person: 1st person is the person speaking, 2nd person is the person being spoken to, and 3rd person is the person being spoken about. You can look at the chart below for examples.
- Case: Determines how a pronoun is being used in a sentence (subject, object, or possessive). We'll go over this more in the next lesson.
Personal Pronouns | ||||||
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
Subject | Object | Possessive | ||||
Singular | Plural | Singular | Plural | Singular | Plural | |
1st Person | I | we | me | us | my, mine | our, ours |
2nd Person | you | you | you | you | your, yours | your, yours |
3rd Person | he, she, it | they | him, her, it | them | his, her, hers, its | their, theirs |