WORDS AS BUILDING BLOCKS OF LANGUAGE

WORDS AS BUILDING BLOCKS OF LANGUAGE

 Pronouns

A conventional definition of pronoun is that it is a word used in place of one or more nouns. It replaces or represents a noun or nouns. For example,
„Ram wondered where Rani was‟ can be rewritten as „he wondered where she was‟.
Pronouns have four sub classes:
 Personal nouns
 Reflexive nouns
 Indefinite pronouns
 Demonstrative nouns
These are explained in the following paragraphs:

(i) Personal pronouns

These have three further categories – Subject, Object and Possessive and each category has three forms – First person, Second person and Third person and each of them can be either singular or plural as shown below:
                                                            Singular                          Plural
First Person
Subject                                                      I                                   We
Object                                                     Me                                  Us
Possessive                                             Mine                                Ours

Second Person
Subject                                                   You                                  You
Object                                                    You                                   You
Possessive                                            Yours                                Yours

Third Person
Subject                                                He, She,                             It They
Object                                                 Him, Her,                           It Them
Possessive                                          His, Hers,                           Its Theirs

(ii) Reflexive Pronouns

These are unique and easily recognizable group of pronouns that end in „–self‟ in singular form or „–selves‟ in plural form as explained below:

Person                         Singular                        Plural

First Person                 Myself                        Ourselves
Second Person           Yourself                       Yourselves
Third Person              Himself                        Themselves

(iii) Indefinite pronouns

These pronouns use the same words as are used in adjectives and can, therefore, be confusing. However, we must remember that the indefinite pronouns stand alone by themselves whereas adjectives always modify nouns. For example,
 Sanjay would like some. Here „some‟ is indefinite pronoun.
 Sanjay would like some spinach. Here some is used as „adjective‟ as it precedes and modifies a noun.

(iv) Demonstrative pronouns

These are a group of four pronouns – „This‟, „That‟, „These‟ and „Those‟. Similar to indefinite pronouns, the same words are also used as adjectives. However, as explained above, pronouns always stand alone - demonstrative pronouns are no exception.