ENGLISH- 19

 ENGLISH- 19

The language has the tradition of using pronouns; there are different kinds of it

PERSONAL PRONOUNS

Personal pronoun refers to individuals as in I, HE, SHE, YOU, IT and THEY.

Thus pronouns are words used in place of a Noun, so, they refer to First, Second or Third persons in singular or plural [as in I and We –first person]

“You” is a personal pronoun for second person, so was ‘thou’ in old English

‘He, She, They and It’ are personal pronouns [Third person].  These  third person personal pronouns are Demonstrative pronouns in a strict sense. Personal pronouns are subdivided to indicate status as ‘Nominative / Possessive/ Accusative in character. [An ‘accusative’ can be explained as the DIRECT OBJECT OF A VERB ] Examples: Me, Us in I person, ‘You’ in II person and ‘Him, Her, It, They, Them, Theirs in III person 

POSSESSIVE PRONOUNS

Though, writers, speakers and learners use them in varied situations, their precise definitions are not well understood and are not properly fed to learners. Yet, it is advantageous to know such classification, at least as a sheer academic exercise.

Often, possessive pronouns happen to have two forms.

These are Possessive adjectives or Pro-nominal adjectives    and 2 Possessive pronouns

POSSESSIVE ADJECTIVE

It is   used with the noun and functions as an Adjective- as in the following examples

This is my phone. Those are your letters.  That is her ‘Head Phone’. These are referred to as ‘Pronominal adjectives as they are formed from pronouns.

POSSESSIVE PRONOUNS

This phone is his. That book is mine. The house plan of yours looks attractive.

The pronoun clearly refers to gender as in He [masculine], She [feminine] and it [neuter] in third person. Pronoun ‘IT’ is a convenient reference to inanimate objects like book or table and the like. But, there are occasions when animate systems like pet animals or kids are referred to by ‘It’. While referring to small kids, ‘it’ is used when reference to the gender is not clear to us as in –when I saw her baby it was asleep. When the gender of the child is known it is stated thus: When I saw her baby, he was crying.

‘It’ can be used as a provisional and temporary subject before the verb. Some examples are as under.

It is doubtful, if play would resume soon, as the field is wet.

It is certain that your argument is wrong.

 It is impossible to implicate them in this crime as they were away on holiday.  

‘It’ can be used to lay stress on the noun or pronoun as in

‘It’ was I who made the proposal.   ‘It’ was at Bangalore that the alliance was thought of.

‘It’ was you who began the dispute.

‘It’ can be used as an indefinite nominative of an impersonal verb as in – It rains, It thunders, It is lightning. In each of these the suggested information is ‘Rain rains,’  Thunder is heard and lightning is seen . Similarly, ‘it’ serves to explain time or climate as in “It” is summer now in Australia. ‘It’ is 3.00 pm now.

More to come

Prof. K. Raman