| Examples |
- Demonstrative pronouns
- They say that this sandwich is tastier than that one.
- It doesn't get any better than this.
- Relative pronouns
- Jane did all the work that I was supposed to do.
- He is the man who stole my bicycle.
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In linguistics and grammar, a pronoun is a pro-form that substitutes for a noun phrase. The replaced phrase is normally the antecedent of the pronoun.
For example, consider the sentence "John gave the coat to Alice." Any of the three nouns in the sentence can be replaced by personal pronouns to give: "He gave it to her." If the coat, John, and Alice have been previously mentioned, the listener can deduce what the pronouns he, it and her refer to and understand the meaning of the sentence.
A pronoun can also be precedent, as "He" is in the sentence: "He gave it to her, John did."
The use of pronouns is particularly welcome when it prevents repetitions. For example "John took the coat and John gave the coat to Alice." can be expressed more effectively by "John took the coat and he gave it to Alice."
Common misconceptions
As can be seen by the examples, pronouns are not restricted to personal pronouns.
Also, note that in the sentence
- If you think your car is expensive, you should see mine
the word "your" is a possessive adjective, not a pronoun. In fact, in that context, "your" stands for a determiner phrase, and not a noun phrase, and so its lexical category is adjective. However, some call possessive adjectives determinative possessive pronouns.
Similarly, in the sentence
- They say that this sandwich is tastier than that one
the word "this" is not a pronoun, but a demonstrative adjective, also called determinative demonstrative.
The content of this page is retrieved from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pronoun under GFDL
