Personal pronouns are used to refer to nouns indicating specific people, groups, or things in a sentence. While replacing such nouns, they help avoid unnecessary repetition (much like other pronouns), leading to better sentence construction. Some personal pronouns also come under other types of pronouns.
For example:
Laura and Laura’s husband went hiking last weekend. However, Laura and Laura’s husband had to return early because Laura and Laura’s husband both fell and sustained injuries.
Note the repetitive nature of the nouns mentioned in the above sentences. “Laura and Laura’s husband” repeats more times than necessary and can be replaced with suitable personal pronouns as follows:
Laura and her husband went hiking last weekend. However, they had to return early because they both fell and sustained injuries.
List of Personal Pronouns
Personal pronouns commonly used in the English language are I, you, we, he, she, it, and they. Depending on how they need to be used in a sentence, these pronouns can also take other forms as follows:
| Singular | Plural | |||||
| First person | Second person | Third person | First person | Second person | Third person | |
| Subjective | I | you | he, she, it | we | you | they |
| Objective | me | you | him, her, it | us | you | them |
| Possessive | mine | yours | his,
hers, its |
ours | yours | theirs |
Types of Personal Pronouns
The above listed personal pronouns can be classified into various types based on:
- Number
- Grammatical person
- Grammatical case
It’s important to note that a personal pronoun can fall under more than one of these categories.
1. Based on Number
1. Singular Personal Pronouns
As is evident from the name, singular personal pronouns refer to a single person or thing. They include I, me, mine, you, yours, he, him, his, she, her, hers, it, and its.
Example sentences with such pronouns:
I have gone far too long without working out.
She has travelled to over 10 countries this past year.
2. Plural Personal Pronouns
These refer to more than one person or thing. Examples of plural personal pronouns are we, us, ours, you, yours, they, them, theirs.
Example sentences that use such pronouns:
We were an hour late for our flight.
They never expected to finish the assignment so soon.
It’s important to note that using they as a singular personal pronoun is widely accepted in writing today. Several style guides including MLA, APA, and Chicago now allow its use in formal writing too. Naturally, its variations them and theirs can also be used for singular entities.
2. Based on Grammatical Person
Grammatical person conveys the connection between the person/group speaking, those being spoken to, and those besides the speaker and addressee. Every personal pronoun belongs to one of these three grammatical persons.
1. First Person Personal Pronouns
These refer to the speaker or the group of people to which the speaker belongs. First person personal pronouns include I, me, mine, we, us, and ours.
The example sentences below show their use:
I went to the supermarket.
We danced all day long.
2. Second Person Personal Pronouns
These are used to refer to the person/group addressed by the speaker. The second person personal pronouns in English are you and yours.
Here is an example sentence illustrating their use:
The doctor insists that you follow the prescribed diet.
Note that you functions as both a second person singular as well as a second person plural personal pronoun.
3. Third Person Personal Pronouns
These refer to everyone else besides the speaker – those being addressed. Third person personal pronouns include he, him, his, she, her, hers, it, its, they, them, and theirs.
The example sentences below indicate their use:
The movie left him in tears.
The extra-credit course didn’t prove to be of much use to them.
3. Based on Grammatical Case
A term largely used in linguistics, grammatical case indicates the function of a non-verb word – usually a pronoun or noun – in relation to other words in a sentence.
Old English is said to have had 5 main cases: nominative, accusative, genitive, dative, and instrumental. However, with time, the English language lost most of its cases, leaving Modern English with just 3 – subjective/nominative, objective/accusative, and possessive/genitive. The 3 cases are mostly applicable only to pronouns; most nouns, several indefinite pronouns, it, and you change form only in the possessive case.
1. Subject Personal Pronouns
These are personal pronouns that occur in the subjective/nominative case in a sentence i.e., where they function as the subject of the sentence. Subject/subjective pronouns include I, you, he, she, it, we, and they.
An example illustrating the use of a personal pronoun in the subjective case:
She gets guitar lessons every day.
In the above sentence, she, which is a personal pronoun, is also the subject performing the action of the verb gets. So, she is a subject personal pronoun here.
2. Object Personal Pronouns
These are personal pronouns in the objective/accusative case in a sentence i.e., where they function as the object of the sentence. Also known as objective pronouns, these personal pronouns include me, you, him, her, it, us, you, and them.
This example shows the use of a personal pronoun in the objective case:
The instructor gave us several assignments for the weekend.
Here, the pronoun us is the object, or the recipient of the verb gave. Therefore, it is an object personal pronoun in the above sentence.
3. Possessive Personal Pronouns
These are personal pronouns present in the possessive/genitive case in a sentence i.e., they indicate possession of something as well as the owner of the possession in a sentence. Possessive personal pronouns include mine, yours, his, hers, its, ours, yours, and theirs.
The example below shows a personal pronoun used in the possessive case:
The dingy room in the corner is hers.
Here, the personal pronoun hers shows that the dingy room is owned (possession) and belongs to her (owner). Thus, hers is a possessive personal pronoun in the above sentence.
