Free Grammar Help—Words—Pronouns

Here's a table to try to make sense of the prounouns:

	Subject Pronoun	Possessive Pronoun	Object Pronoun
First Person Singular	I	mine	me
Second Person Singular	you	yours	you
Third Person Singular	he, she, it	his, hers, its	him, her, it
First Person Plural	we	ours	us
Second Person Plural	you	yours	you
Third Person Plural	they	theirs	them
Relative or Interrogative	who	whose	whom

I just want to point out that pronouns never use an apostrophe. So even though we might write "The dog's bone," we do not subsequently refer to "it's bone." "It's" is a contraction meaning "It is"; "Its" is a possessive pronoun. A similar mistake is using "who's" for "whose". Sometimes people also throw an apostrophe into "hers" or "theirs" and write "her's" or "their's." Wrong! Wrong! Wrong! Always wrong.

Notice that my, your, his, etc are not pronouns. They are possessive adjectives.

Another point is about the difference between "who" and "whom." Notice in the following sentence that "who" is the subject of the clause. "I went to see the man who stole my money." Even though the subject of the sentence is "I", the man is still the subject of the adjectival clause. More on Who and Whom. How to tell whether to use That or Which.

Nominative (subject) Case for Pronouns

This is the case used for the subject of a sentence. It's pretty easy to know your write "I hit the ball," not "Me hit the ball," but one common question I get is goes like this: "which is correct: She is richer than I OR She is richer than me." This is one of many examples where informal and formal English differ. The reason is that there is an assumed (not written) verb after the second pronoun. If we insert the missing verb, it is clear the formal version is correct: She is richer than I (am). When we use it as a comparison, the rule is the same: She is happier than they (are.)

We use the pronoun "who" even if there are elements between it and its verb. Example: "I will choose the one who I think makes the best candidate." (Who is the subject of makes.)

We also use the nominative case for any pronoun that is the subject of a clause even when that clause is the object of another subject. Sounds confusing? OK, here's an example: "I am looking for the guy who broke into my house." (Who is the subject of broke. "The guy who broke into my house" is the object of looking.)

OK, and here's one more that bugs me because it just seems wrong to me. we use the nominative case of the personal pronoun after forms of the verb "to be". This means it's right to answer "This is he" when someone asks for you on the telephone. Ugh. I always thought the subject was "it" and therefore the object is "me."

We also use the nominative for a pronoun following the infinitive form of the verb "to be" when the infinitive has no expressed subject. This means we write "I would not want to be he" and we all thought it was "I wouldn't want to be him." That's why most of us just don't speak no good English.

Objective Case for Pronouns

We use the objective case for the object of a verb, verbal or preposition. (A verbal is a verb that acts like a noun--more later.)
1. Object of a verb: I hit him. Whom did you hit?
2. Object of a verbal: Robbing them is my favourite activity. (Them is the object of the verbal Robbing.)
3. Object of a preposition: Three of them were arrested. (Them is the object of the preposition of.)