Knowra Personal pronouns in English Personal pronouns in English Personal pronouns in English stand in for people or other referents while distinguishing grammatical person. Their forms can vary by case, number, and, in the third-person singular, gender.
Grammatical person : A grammatical distinction among participants in an utterance, commonly first, second, and third person. English pronoun forms signal whether the speaker, addressee, or another referent is meant.
Subject pronoun : A pronoun form used as the subject of a clause, such as I, she, or they. English personal pronouns use subject forms in clauses such as “They arrived.”
Singular they : The use of they and its forms to refer to one person, often when gender is unknown, irrelevant, or nonbinary. Singular they shows that the plural-looking form can refer to one person.
Personal pronouns and gender identity : The relationship between a person’s gender identity and the pronouns used to refer to that person. A person’s requested pronouns guide respectful reference in English.
Grammatical number : A grammatical distinction expressing how many entities a word denotes, commonly singular and plural. Number distinguishes forms such as I and we, though you serves both singular and plural.
Object pronoun : A pronoun form used as an object, such as me, him, us, or them. Object forms follow verbs and prepositions, as in “She called us.”
Generic he : The use of he to refer generically to a person whose gender is unspecified. It contrasts with gender-neutral choices such as singular they.
Pronoun case error : A usage error in which a pronoun’s grammatical case does not fit its role in a sentence. Case errors arise when choosing between forms such as I and me.
Grammatical case : A grammatical system marking a word’s relationship to other words in a sentence. Case explains contrasts such as she and her, and they and them.
Possessive pronoun : A pronoun that expresses possession and can stand without a following noun, such as mine or theirs. Possessive forms extend the English personal-pronoun paradigm beyond subject and object forms.
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