Pronouns are one of the most useful parts of speech in the English language. They help us avoid redundancy, improve sentence flow, and make communication more efficient. While their role may seem subtle, pronouns are essential tools in both spoken and written language. In this blog, we’ll take a closer look at what pronouns are, the different types of pronouns, and how they work to simplify our communication.
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A pronoun is a word used in place of a noun (person, place, thing, or idea) to avoid repetition. By substituting a noun with a pronoun, we can make sentences shorter and more natural-sounding, which is especially important for keeping our conversations and writing engaging.
For instance, instead of saying:
"John is going to the store. John will buy some bread." We can replace the second "John" with a pronoun: "John is going to the store. He will buy some bread." The pronoun "He" substitutes the noun "John," making the sentence more concise and easier to read.
Also read: How to introduce yourself in English?
As the use of pronouns is very diverse and common, the English language has several types of these pronouns. All of them can be used in different contexts. There are 10 types of pronouns in English language. They are:
1. Relative Pronouns
You can use these to connect or relate one part of the sentence to the other. The relative pronoun examples are: “Which, why, where, whom, and whose.”
2. Reflexive Pronouns
A reflexive pronoun is used to refer to the subject in the sentence previously. For example: “Yourself, herself, ourselves, and oneself.”
3. Object Pronouns
The receiver of the action in any sentence are object pronouns. For example: him, her, me, and them.
4. Personal / Subject Pronouns
These are also called personal pronouns that perform the action as per the sentence. For example: I, she, he, they, it, and one.
5. Reciprocal Pronouns
These pronouns are used to reflect a mutual relationship between two nouns. For example: each other and one another.
6. Possessive Pronouns
Possessive pronouns are used to show possession of something or someone. For example: mine, yours, hers, and his.
7. Demonstrative Pronouns
A demonstrative pronoun is used to point to a specific direction or objects. For example: this, that, these, and those.
8. Interrogative Pronouns
The interrogative pronouns are used to ask questions. Their examples are: who, what, when, why, and where.
9. Indefinite Pronouns
The indefinite pronouns do not refer to a specific person, name, or thing. For example: anywhere, each, none, everybody, etc.
10. Intensive Pronouns
These are just like reflexive pronouns. However, you can remove an intensive pronoun and the sentences will still make sense. For example: herself, itself, themselves, etc.
These are the different types of pronoun. You must try using them in various sentences to learn them and their difference. For this, you can also refer to the pronouns chart in the section below and know where to use which pronoun.
Also read: Difficult words in English with meaning
There are more than 100 pronouns in English language that you can use. As noted before, these are used to replace nouns in a sentence. These also make up a huge fraction of daily use English words. However, their usage differs from 1st person to 2nd and 3rd person. Also, these vary as per singular and plural nouns. Below is a table to explain this usage in detail:
Hopefully, the table above helped you understand the usage of different pronouns in all contexts. For more clarity, we have also given some pronoun examples in the section below.
Also read: Proverbs in English
Now that you know about pronoun definition and types, let us focus on some examples to get a better idea of their usage:
These are pronoun examples of each type. Now you must be aware that there are differences between nouns and pronouns. If not, don’t worry! The next section will elaborate on these differences in detail.
Also Read: Degrees of Comparison
Many people get confused with the terms pronouns and nouns. They often seem same but are slightly different. Apart from the major difference in their meanings, here is the detailed difference between pronouns and nouns:
| Pronouns | Nouns |
|---|---|
| Pronouns are words that are used in place of nouns. | A noun can be a name of a persona, place, animal, thing, or even idea. |
| There are more than 100 pronouns in the English language. | They are one of the major word classes. This means that the English vocabulary has a lot of words and a most of them are categorized as nouns, then verbs, adjectives, and so on. |
| There are 10 types of pronouns: indefinite, reflective, demonstrative pronouns, etc. | There are 12 types of nouns: proper noun, common noun, material noun, plural and singular noun, etc. |
| For example, pronouns can look like: she, they, them, it, her, his, oneself, themselves, mine, yourself, and so on. | Examples of nouns are: Ronny, hut, affinity, lake, desert, and so on. |
Apart from these important differences between pronouns and nouns, you must also know how they are different from determiners. The next section will explain how determiners and pronouns vary with examples.
After the difference between pronouns and nouns, there is another term called determiners. Many confuse them with pronouns. Thus, the table below will elaborate on the differences between pronouns and determiners.
| Pronouns | Determiners |
|---|---|
| Pronouns are used in place of nouns. | Determiners are used before nouns. |
| There are over 100 pronouns in the English language that you use daily. | There are 4 types of determiners: 1. Articles: a, an, the 2. Demonstratives Possessives 3. Quantifiers 4. Numbers |
| For example, pronouns can look like: she, they, them, it, her, his, oneself, themselves, mine, yourself, and so on. | For example, a, an, the, this, that, your, his, her, some, many, one, two, and so on. |
To sum up, pronouns are one of the most important parts of speech. So much so that you use it almost daily while communicating in the English language. This blog showed the correct usage of every type of pronoun before supporting verbs. It is essential to learn if you wish to speak English fluently and correctly.
A pronoun is a word that can replace a noun in sentences. Pronouns are often used to avoid using the noun again and again in a paragraph. For example, Harry is a great teacher. He teaches primary school children. Here, “Harry” is a noun, used in the first sentence and it got replaced with “He” in the second sentence.
The 10 main types of pronouns in English are:
Usually, pronouns like “it, he, she, them”, etc are used to replace nouns like names of people and places in sentences. The noun which it replaces is called antecedent.
A noun is the name of a person, animal, place, or thing. Pronouns are words that can be used in place of these names. She, he, they, someone, mine, yourself are all pronouns.
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