In linguistics and grammar, a pronoun is a pro-form that substitutes for a noun or noun phrase with or without a determiner, such as you and they in English. The replaced phrase is the antecedent of the pronoun. A pronoun used for the item questioned in a question is called an interrogative pronoun, such as who. For the journal, see Linguistics (journal). ... For the rules of English grammar, see English grammar and Disputes in English grammar. ... A pro-form is a function word that substitutes a word, phrase, clause, or sentence whose meaning is recoverable from the context, and it is used to avoid redundant expressions. ... In linguistics, a noun or noun substantive is a lexical category which is defined in terms of how its members combine with other grammatical kinds of expressions. ... Look up noun phrase in Wiktionary, the free dictionary. ... For the function in NP structure, see Determiner (function). ... The English language is a West Germanic language that originates in England. ... In grammar, an antecedent is the noun or noun phrase to which a pronoun refers. ... An interrogative pronoun (also known simply as an interrogative) is a pronoun used in asking questions. ...

For example, consider the sentence "John gave the coat to Alice." All three nouns in the sentence can be replaced by pronouns to give: "He gave it to her." If the coat, John, and Alice have been previously mentioned, the listener can deduce what the pronouns he, it and her refer to and therefore understand the meaning of the sentence. However, if the sentence, "He gave it to her," is the first presentation of the idea, none of the pronouns have antecedents, also called unprecursed pronouns, and each pronoun is therefore considered ambiguous.

Types of Pronouns

Common types of pronouns found in the world's languages are as follows.

• Personal pronouns stand in place of the names of people or things:
  • Subjective pronouns are used when the person or thing is the subject of the sentence or clause. English example: I like to eat chips but she doesn't.
    • Second person formal and informal pronouns. For example, vous and tu in French. There is no distinction in modern English, though Elizabethan English marked the distinction with "thou" (singular informal) and "you" (plural or singular formal).
    • Inclusive and exclusive "we" pronouns indicate whether or not the audience is included. There is no distinction in English.
  • Objective pronouns are used when the person or thing is the object of the sentence or clause. English example: John likes me but not her.
    • Direct and indirect object pronouns. English uses the same forms for both; for example: Mary loves him (direct object); Mary sent him a letter (indirect object).
    • Reflexive pronouns are used when a person or thing acts on itself. English example: John cut himself.
    • Reciprocal pronouns refer to a reciprocal relationship. English example: They don't like each other.
  • Prepositional pronouns come after a preposition. No distinct forms exist in English; for example: Mary looked at him.
  • Disjunctive pronouns are used in isolation, or in certain other special grammatical contexts. No distinct forms exist in English; for example: Who does this belong to? Me.
  • Dummy pronouns are used when grammatical rules require a noun (or pronoun), but none is semantically required. English example: It is raining.
  • Weak pronouns.
• Possessive pronouns are used to indicate possession or ownership. English example: Those clothes are mine.
  • Determinative possessive pronouns are a somewhat confusing alternative name for possessive adjectives (also known as possessive determiners); for example, in English: I lost my wallet. They are not strictly pronouns because they do not substitute for a noun or noun phrase, and as such some grammarians classify these terms in a separate lexical category called determiners.
• Demonstrative pronouns distinguish the particular objects or people that are referred to from other possible candidates. English example: I'll take these.
• Indefinite pronouns refer to general categories of people or things. English example: Anyone can do that.
  • Distributive pronouns are used to refer to members of a group separately, rather than collectively. English example: To each his own.
  • Negative pronouns indicate the non-existence of people or things. English example: Nobody thinks that.
• Relative pronouns refer back to people or things previously mentioned. English example: People who smoke should quit now.
• Interrogative pronouns ask which person or thing is meant. English example: Who did that?
• Intensive pronouns re-emphasize a noun or pronoun that has already been mentioned. English uses the same forms as for the reflexive pronouns; for example: I did it myself (contrast reflexive use I did it to myself).

Personal pronouns are pronouns often used as substitutes for proper or common nouns. ... The subjective pronouns are pronouns used as the subject of a sentence; in other words, the initiator or instigator of a verb. ... According to a tradition that can be tracked back to Aristotle, every sentence can be divided in two main constituents, one being the subject of the sentence and the other being its predicate. ... In sociolinguistics, a T-V distinction describes the situation wherein a language has second-person pronouns that distinguish varying levels of politeness, social distance, courtesy, familiarity, or insult toward the addressee. ... Inclusive we is a pronoun or verb conjugation that indicates the inclusion of the speaker, the addressee, and perhaps other people, as opposed to exclusive we, which specifically excludes the addressee. ... An objective pronoun functions as the target of a verb, as distinguished from a subjective pronoun, which is the initiator of a verb. ... An object in grammar is a sentence element and part of the sentence predicate. ... An object in grammar is a sentence element and part of the sentence predicate. ... “Oneself” redirects here. ... The reciprocal pronouns in English are one another and each other. ... This article is about special pronominal forms used after prepositions. ... It has been suggested that this article or section be merged with adposition. ... A disjunctive pronoun is a stressed form of a pronoun reserved for use in isolation or in certain syntactic contexts. ... A dummy pronoun (or more formally expletive pronoun or pleonastic pronoun) is a type of pronoun used in non-pro-drop languages, such as English, when a particular argument of a verb (or preposition) is nonexistent, unknown, irrelevant, already understood, or otherwise not to be spoken of directly, but a... Weak pronouns are helping pronouns many languages have for easily explaining the possessive status of something, to whom something belongs. ... A possessive pronoun is a part of speech that attributes ownership to someone or something. ... Possession, in the context of linguistics, is an asymmetric relationship between two constituents, one of which possesses (owns, rules over, has as a part, has as a relative, etc. ... A possessive pronoun is a part of speech that attributes ownership to someone or something. ... Headline text hjvhwhatsgm,Possessive adjectives modify nouns. ... A possessive adjective, also called a possessive determiner or possessive article, is a part of speech that modifies a noun by attributing ownership to someone or something (with some exceptions noted below). ... A demonstrative pronoun in grammar and syntax is a pronoun that shows the place of something. ... An indefinite pronoun is a pronoun that does not refer to a specific person, place or thing. ... Look up distributive in Wiktionary, the free dictionary. ... A poprelative pronoun is a pronoun that marks a relative clause within a larger sentence. ... Interrogative redirects here. ... This article is considered orphaned, since there are very few or no other articles that link to this one. ...

Pronouns in English

Main article: English personal pronouns

Ordinary English has seven personal pronouns: first-person singular (I), first-person plural (we), second-person (you), third-person singular masculine (he), third-person singular feminine (she), third-person singular neuter (it), and third-person plural (they). Each pronoun has a number of forms: a subjective case form (I/we/etc.), used when it's the subject of a finite verb; an objective case form (me/us/etc.), used when it's the object of verb or of a preposition; two possessive case forms (my/our/etc. and mine/ours/etc.), used when it's the possessor of another noun — one that's used as a determiner, and one that's used as a pronoun or a predicate adjective; and a reflexive form (myself/ourselves/etc.), which replaces the objective-case form in referring to the same entity as the subject. That said, the different pronouns, and the different forms of the pronouns, often have overlapping functions. The personal pronouns of English can have various forms according to gender, number, person, and case. ... Possession, in the context of linguistics, is an asymmetric relationship between two constituents, one of which possesses (owns, rules over, has as a part, has as a relative, etc. ... For the function in NP structure, see Determiner (function). ...

Pronouns in other languages

• Bulgarian pronouns
• Chinese pronouns
• Dutch grammar: pronouns
• Esperanto grammar: pronouns
• French pronouns
• German pronouns
• Ido pronouns
• Interlingua pronouns
• Irish morphology: pronouns
• Italian grammar: pronouns
• Japanese Pronouns
• Novial: pronouns
• Portuguese personal pronouns
• Spanish grammar: pronouns
• Vietnamese pronouns
• Russian pronouns

Bulgarian pronouns vary in gender, number, definiteness and case. ... There are seven basic Chinese pronouns in Vernacular Chinese: Originally, Chinese had no distinction for gender in the second- and third-person pronouns, and no distinction for animacy in the third-person either. ... This page outlines the grammar of the Dutch language. ... Esperanto is a constructed auxiliary language. ... French pronouns are inflected to indicate their role in the sentence (subject, direct object, and so on), as well as to reflect the person, gender, and number of their referrents. ... German Pronouns of the first person refer to the speaker; those of the second person refer to an addressed person. ... Ido (pronounced ) is a constructed language created with the goal of becoming a universal second language for speakers of different linguistic backgrounds as a language easier to learn than ethnic languages. ... This article is an informal outline of the grammar of Interlingua, an international auxiliary language first publicized by IALA. It follows the usage of the original grammar text (Gode & Blair, 1951), which is accepted today but regarded as conservative. ... The morphology of Irish is in some respects typical of an Indo-European language. ... Italian grammar is the study of grammar of the Italian language. ... Japanese pronouns. ... Novial [nov- (new) + IAL, International Auxiliary Language] is a constructed international auxiliary language (IAL) intended to facilitate international communication and friendship, without displacing anyones native language. ... The pronouns of the Portuguese language have flexions according to their number and, in case of some third person forms, also according to their gender. ... The Spanish language has a range of pronouns that in some ways work quite differently from English ones. ... Vietnamese pronouns are more accurately forms of address. ...

See also

Look up pronoun in Wiktionary, the free dictionary.

• Gender-specific pronoun
• Gender-neutral pronoun
• Generic antecedents
• Deixis
• Pro-form
• Pronoun game
• Morphosyntactic alignment