Grammar – Pronoun & Its Types

Pronoun

A word that is used in place of a noun or noun phrase is known as a pronoun. Pronouns can either refer to a noun that has been mentioned previously or to a noun that does not specifically need to be named.

Types of Pronoun

• Personal Pronouns

The most commonly used pronouns are personal pronouns. These refer to the people or persons writing or speaking (first person), the people or persons being spoken to (second person), or other things or people (third person). Similar to nouns, personal pronouns can function as either the subject of a verb or the object of a verb or preposition.

• As Subject
• As Object

• Interrogative Pronouns

Interrogative pronouns introduce questions for which a noun is the answer.

• Possessive Pronouns

Possessive pronouns refer to people or things that belong to someone.

• Demonstrative Pronouns

Demonstrative pronouns distinguish the person or thing being referred to from other people or things; they are identical to demonstrative adjectives.

• Relative Pronouns

Relative pronouns introduce a part of a sentence that includes a subject and verb but do not form a sentence by itself.

• Reflexive Pronouns

Reflexive pronouns refer back to the subject of a clause or a sentence and are formed by adding the suffixes -self or -selves to a personal pronoun or possessive adjective.

• Indefinite Pronouns

Indefinite pronouns do not refer to a specific person or thing and typically refer to an unidentified or unfamiliar person or thing.

Expletives

The words there and it are also used like pronouns sometimes when the rules of grammar require a subject, but no noun is actually being referred to. Both are usually used at the beginning of a sentence or clause. These are referred to as expletives.