Pronouns (Lower Form)

Pronoun

A pronoun is a word that takes the place of a noun. There are a few types of  pronouns:

• Personal pronouns e.g. I, you, we, they, he, she, it, him
• Possessive pronouns e.g. mine, yours, ours, theirs
• Demonstrative pronouns e.g. that, this, those, these
• Interrogative pronouns e.g. Who, What, Where, Whose, Whom

Personal Pronouns 

• Look at the following examples showing how the pronouns are used.

          Examples:

               Mat and June are friends. He has known her for ten years.

               Yan Li has a goldfish. She always feeds it fresh worms.

               Tom, Rick and Larry are bus drivers. They ferry schoolchildren.

               We are taking sewing lessons. It is up to us to choose the materials we like.

               They are hungry. Puan Zaiton is going to give them a snack.

               I hope to get there by nightfall. My parents are expecting me.

Possessive Pronouns

• These pronouns are used to show who an object belongs to. Read the examples below:

           The red shirt is mine. (The red shirt belongs to me.)

           This ticket is yours. (This ticket belongs to you.)

           His friend is here to see him. (Andy’s friend is here to see him.)

           The puppy is hers. (The puppy belongs to her.)

           The blue van is ours. (The blue van belongs to us.

           The radio is theirs. (The radio belongs to them.)

• There are two types of ‘possessive words’. A possessive adjective has a noun after it while a possessive pronoun does not. Look at the table below.

Personal pronouns	I	you	he	she	it	we	they
Possessive adjectives	my	your	his	her	its	our	their
Possessive pronouns	mine	yours	his	hers	-	ours	theirs

• The sentence in brackets means the same as the former sentence.

          Examples: This is my car. (This car is mine.)

                            (Notice that there is the noun ‘car’ after ‘my’. There is no noun after ‘mine’.)

Interrogative Pronouns

• Who, Whom, Which, What and Where are interrogative pronouns. These pronouns are used to ask about people, places or things.

          Example: Who is this man?

                          Whom did you give the book to?

                          Which is your pen, the blue or the red one?

                          What is inside this box?

                          Where does your friend live?

• Whose is used to ask who the owner of an object is.

          Example: Alice : Whose book is this?

                          Jenny : Oh, it is Sue’s. (The book belongs to Sue.)


Demonstrative Pronouns

• Demonstrative pronouns include words like this, that, these and those.
• This and that are uses to describe singular nouns. These and those are used to describe plural nouns.
• This and these are used to refer to things that are near us. That and those are used to refer to things that are far away. 

The Use of 'Each'

• Each is used to refer to every single member of a group. It basically means 'every'.
• Each is used with countable nouns only.
• Each takes singular verbs, nouns and pronouns.

          Example: Each child was given a lollipop.