A pronoun is a word that is used as a replacement for a noun, or in some cases a noun phrase. There are many aspects to pronouns, and this website is dedicated to providing information on a wide variety of areas regarding these words.

Types

Many a form of this kind of word exists. Personal pronouns are substitutes for nouns that are people or as well as objects (which can be inanimate). Examples of this type include I as a first-person singular, you as either singular or plural in the second-person, and it for third-person singular.

Possessive pronouns replace a possessive adjective as well as a noun. An example of this is using the word mine to replace the phrase my backpack, like in: "Is this your backpack? No, it is not mine. Someone else must have left it behind." Another possibility is writing his as a substitute for John's computer, as in: "Have you seen John's new computer? I have not seen his, but did get to look at David's new laptop recently."

An interrogative pronoun asks regarding who or what is meant. One instance of this would be: "What did you have for dinner last night?" with what being the pronoun involved in this question. Another possibility is the word who, such as in: "Who would like to go to the baseball game this weekend?"

A demonstrative pronoun is used to make a distinction between things, such as to indicate what is being spoken about. For example, if a man wanted to tell his friend what which house his family intended to move into, he could say "We chose this house." The word this is demonstrative.

Antecedents

The term antecedent can have more than one meaning. When a pronoun is being discussed, then its antecedent is the word or words that are being replaced. This would be the noun or noun phrase. To give a simple idea of what this means, take the sentence: "I spoke with Daniela, and she told me that we should meet at 5:00pm." There are multiple pronouns in this sentence, but the one to which we can see both ends is she. We can tell that its antecedent in this case is Daniela.