A. Personal Pronoun : you, he, me, she, them etc.
1. A personal pronoun must be of the same number, gender and person as the noun for which it stands. e.g., Everyman must love his own country.
2. The component of the verb to be (is, am, are, was, were, will, shall) when it is expressed by a pronoun, should be in nominative case. To be means i
Is with he, she, it
Am with ‘I’
Are with we, you, they
was with I, he she, it
were with we, you, they
will with you, he, she, it, they
shall with I, we
3. If a pronoun is used as the object of the verb or of a preposition it should be in the objective case. . e.g. He was teaching him (not he).
4. Objective case is used after the words like let, like, but etc.
e.g., Let me read this book.
5. When two or more singular nouns are joined by and are refer to
(a) Separate person-the pronoun used for them must be plural.
(b) some persons-the pronoun used for them must be singular.
Eg.,
(i)Both Riya and Reema showed their report cards-to their father.
(ii) The controller and auditor general has submitted his report.
6.Words such as : as well as, as soon as, as beautiful as etc. are followed by nominative case.
e.g., In case of language proficiency no one is as good as you.
7(a) When two or more singular nouns are joined by or,either or, neither nor, the pronoun and the verb should be singular. Either Reshma or her sister will come to complete her task.
(b) When one singular and one plural noun are used with either or, neither, nor, the plural noun always come second. The verb and the pronoun both becomes plural.
e.g., Neither Rohan nor his friends were present in the seminar.
Distributive Pronoun : Each, either and neither.
1. Each can be used for two or more persons or things and is normally used for small number and a singular verb is used.
e.g., Each of the students receive his prize.
2. Either and neither are used for two persons or things. For more than two any/anyone is
used in place of either and none is used in place of neither.
e.g., Neither of these two girls has done this.
3. With distributive pronouns the third person, singular pronoun, masculine gender (he, his, him) is used.
e.g., Each student has completed his home task.
4. If. feminine gender noun follows the distributive pronouns then personal pronoun ‘her’ is used.
e.g., Each of the girls has donated her pocket money for the poor.
5. If a plural pronoun (us, them, you) follows the distributive pronoun, singular masculine gender pronoun is used.
e.g., Each of them has forgotten his bag.
Demonstrative Pronoun : this, that, these, those, such, it etc.
1. When all above works are used immediately preceding a noun, they function as demonstrative adjectives.
e.g., These peoples are my friends.
2. Pronoun ‘it’ comes before the phrase or clause to which it refers, whereas ’this’ follows the
phrase or clause it refers to.
e.g., It (not this) is true that India has won the match.
3. Use of that or those should be done after than according to the noun.
e.g., The area of the Rajasthan is larger than that of Haryana.
Indefinite pronoun: Any, anyone, somebody, everybody, no one, everything, anything, nothing, everyone etc.
1 If we are not talking specifically about females only masculine gender is used with all of these.
e.g., Everyone was getting ready for his (not her) show.
2. ‘Each other’ should be used in speaking of two persons or things while ‘one another’ is used in speaking of more than two.
3. When we are talking about more than two persons or things, ’anyone’ is used in place of either and ‘none’ in place of neither.
4. If ‘one’ is used in a sentence, it always repeat itself.
e.g., One must obey one’s elders.
Relative Pronoun: who, whose, whom, where, which, when, what etc.
1. Who is used for subject and whom for object.
e.g., (i) Who is Rohan ?
(ii) He is the person whom I met at the party.
2. No antecedent is used before what.
e.g., I am not sure what he says.
3. The relative pronoun should be placed as near as possible to its antecedent.
e.g.,
(i) My brother wants to travel to Kazhakistan who is learning Russian (Not correct).
(ii) My brother who is learning Russian wants to travel to Kazhakistan.
4. ‘Whose’ is used to refer to person only while ‘of which’ is used to refer to lifeless objects.
e.g.,
(i) I have a friend whose mother is hospitalized.
(ii) I saw, a tree the branches of which overhung the street, was laid with fruits.
In some cases, the relative pronoun ‘that’ is preferred to ‘who’ or ‘which’.
(a) After adjectives in the superlative degree. e.g., It is the best movie that (not which) I have ever seen.
(b) After the some words such as all, same, any, only, nothing, the only etc.
e.g., All that (not which) glitters is not gold.
(c) After two antecedents, one denoting a person and the other denoting an animal or a thing.
e.g., The man and his dog that had entered the school were turned out.
(d) After the interrogative pronouns, who and what.
e.g., Who is the girl that comes in your dream
(F) Interrogative Pronoun : Who, when, whose. which, what, whomever, whoever, whatever etc.
1. ‘Who’ and ‘whom' usually refer to people while ‘which’ can refer to people occasionally.
2. ‘Which’ and ‘what’ usually refer to things and animals.
3. ‘Who’ acts as the subject of a verb while ‘whom' acts as the object ofa verb or proposition.
4. ‘Which is’ generally used with more specific reference than what.
e.g., (i) Which institute have you joined for preparation?
(ii) What are you doing these days?
5.Which is Used in place of who and what when we are referring to a choice between two or among more than two things or persons.
e.g., of the two brothers which is more intelligent?
6. Whom (not who) is used after preposition.
e.g., By whom was this letter written?
(G) Reflexive Pronoun :Himself, herself. itself. yourself, myself, ourselves etc.
1. When pronouns are combined, the reflexive will take either the first person or when there is no first person, the second person.
e.g., Siya and I have decided ourselves about purchasing a car.
2. If a transitive verb has no object, the reflexive pronoun fills the place of objects. Such verbs are avail, absent, enjoy, pride, introduce, apply, cheat, satisfy, busy, revenge etc.
e.g., (i) She introduce herself to the principal.
(ii) I revenged myself upon her.
3. With the following verbs reflexive pronouns are not used : Bathe, break, burst, keep, set, make, stop, steal, qualify, move, Open, draw, rest, roll, hide, feed, gather, turn etc. These verbs are commonly used intransitively. e.g.,
(i) Let us rest on the bed.
(ii) We bathed in the river.
4. A reflexive pronoun cannot be used us a substitute for the subject. e.g., Pawan and myself were present on the site. I (not myself) will see you in the party.
5. The indefinite pronoun one has its own reflexive form. e.g., One must have faith in oneself. Other indefinite pronouns use either himself or themselves as reflexives.
6. Some words like child, infant, baby etc, can’t tell us about their sex. So ‘itself’ is used with such words as reflexive pronouns.
e.g., The baby has hurt itself.
(H) Emphatic Pronoun: Myself, yourself, herself, ourselves, themselves, etc.
1. The emphatic pronoun is used to emphasis a noun and it is placed after the noun it refers. e.g., I myself solved this sum.
(i) Reciprocal Pronoun: Each other and one another
1. Both are always used objectively for Combining ideas.
e.g., The two friends helped each other with their work.
2. Each other is usually used for two and if more than two people are involved, one another is used. .
e.g., They all gave evidence against one another.
(J) Exclamatory Pronoun : ‘what’
When ‘what’ is used to express surprise, then it is called exclamatory pronoun. , e.g., What! you lost the chain.
