Personal pronoun

Personal pronounsarepronounsthat are associated primarily with a particulargrammatical person– first person (asI), second person (asyou), or third person (ashe,she,it,they). Personal pronouns may also take different forms depending onnumber(usually singular or plural), grammatical or naturalgender,case,and formality. The term "personal" is used here purely to signify the grammatical sense; personal pronouns are not limited to people and can also refer to animals and objects (as the English personal pronounitusually does).

The re-use in some languages of one personal pronoun to indicate a second personal pronoun with formality orsocial distance– commonly a second person plural to signify second person singular formal – is known as theT–V distinction,from theLatinpronounstuandvos.Examples are themajestic pluralin English and the use ofvousin place oftuinFrench.

For specific details of the personal pronouns used in theEnglish language,seeEnglish personal pronouns.

Types and forms

Pronoun vs pro-form

Pronoun is a category of words. Apro-formis a type offunction wordor expression that stands in for (expresses the same content as) anotherword,phrase,clauseorsentencewhere themeaningis recoverable from the context.^[1]Pronouns mostly function as pro-forms, but there are pronouns that are not pro-forms and pro-forms that are not pronouns.^[2]^{[p. 239]}

It's a good idea.(pronoun and pro-form)
It's raining.(pronoun but not pro-form)
I asked her to help, and shedid soright away.(pro-form but not pronoun)

In [1], the pronounit"stands in" for whatever was mentioned and is a good idea. In [2], the pronounitdoesn't stand in for anything. No other word can function there with the same meaning; we don't say "the sky is raining" or "the weather is raining". So,itis a pronoun but not a pro-form. Finally, in [3],did sois a verb phrase, not a pronoun, but it is a pro-form standing for "help".

Person and number

Languages typically have personal pronouns for each of the threegrammatical persons:

first-personpronouns normally refer to the speaker, in the case of the singular (as the EnglishI), or to the speaker and others, in the case of the plural (as the Englishwe).
second-personpronouns normally refer to the person or persons being addressed (as the Englishyou); in the plural they may also refer to the person or persons being addressed together with third parties.
third-personpronouns normally refer to third parties other than the speaker or the person being addressed (as the Englishhe,she,it,they).

As noted above, within each person there are often different forms for differentgrammatical numbers,especially singular and plural. Languages which have other numbers, such asdual(e.g.Slovene),^[3]may also have distinct pronouns for these.

Some languages distinguish betweeninclusiveandexclusivefirst-person plural pronouns – those that do and do not include their audience. For example,Tok Pisinhas seven first-person pronouns according to number (singular, dual, trial, plural) and clusivity, such asmitripela( "they two and I" ) andyumitripela( "you two and I" ).^[4]

Some languages do not have third-person personal pronouns, instead usingdemonstratives(e.g.Macedonian)^[5]or full noun phrases.Latinused demonstratives rather than third-person pronouns (in fact the third-person pronouns in theRomance languagesare descended from the Latin demonstratives).

In some cases personal pronouns can be used in place ofindefinite pronouns,referring to someone unspecified or to people generally. In English and other languages the second-person pronoun can be used in this way: instead of the formalone should hold one's oar in both hands(using the indefinite pronounone), it is more common to sayyou should hold your oar in both hands.

Gender

In many languages, personal pronouns, particularly those of the third person, differ depending on the gender of theirantecedentor referent. This occurs in English with the third-person singular pronouns, where (simply put)heis used when referring to a man,sheto a woman,singulartheyto a person whose gender is unknown or unspecified at the time that the pronoun is being used or to a person who does not identify as either a man or a woman, anditto something inanimate or an animal of unspecific sex. This is an example of pronoun selection based on natural gender; many languages also have selection based on grammatical gender (as inFrench,where the pronounsilandelleare used with masculine and feminine antecedents respectively, as are the pluralsilsandelles). Sometimes natural and grammatical gender do not coincide, as with the German nounMädchen( "girl" ), which is grammatically neuter but naturally feminine. (SeeGrammatical gender § Grammatical vs. natural genderfor more details.)

Issues may arise when the referent is someone of unspecified or unknown gender. In a language such as English, it is derogatory to use the inanimate pronounitto refer to a person (except in some cases to a small child), and although it is traditional to use the masculineheto refer to a person of unspecified gender, the movement towardsgender-neutral languagerequires that another method be found, such as sayinghe or she.A common solution, particularly in informal language, is to usesingularthey.For more details seeGender in English.

Similar issues arise in some languages when referring to a group of mixed gender; these are dealt with according to the conventions of the language in question (in French, for example, the masculineils"they" is used for a group containing both men and women or antecedents of both masculine and feminine gender).

A pronoun can still carry gender even if it does not inflect for it; for example, in the French sentenceje suis petit( "I am small" ) the speaker is male and so the pronounjeis masculine, whereas inje suis petitethe speaker is female and the pronoun is treated as feminine, the feminine ending-econsequently being added to the predicate adjective.

On the other hand, many languages do not distinguish female and male in the third person pronoun.

Some languages have or had a non-gender-specific third person pronoun:

Malay(including Indonesian and Malaysian standards),Malagasyof Madagascar, Philippine languages, Māori, Rapa Nui, Hawaiian, and otherAustronesian languages
Chinese, Burmese, and otherSino-Tibetan languages
Vietnamese and otherMon–Khmer languages
Igbo,Yoruba,and otherVolta-Niger languages
Swahili, and otherBantu languages
Haitian Creole
Turkishand otherTurkic languages
Luo and otherNilo-Saharan languages
Hungarian,Finnish,Estonian, and otherUralic languages
Hindi-Urdu
Georgian
Japanese
Armenian
Korean
Mapudungun
Basque
Persian

Some of these languages started to distinguish gender in the third person pronoun due to influence from European languages.
Mandarin,for example, introduced, in the early 20th century a different character forshe( tha ), which is pronounced identically ashe( tha ) and thus is still indistinguishable in speech (tā).

Koreangeunyeo(그녀) is found in writing to translate "she" from European languages. In the spoken language it still sounds awkward and rather unnatural, as it literally translates to "that female".^{[citation needed]}

Formality

Many languages have different pronouns, particularly in the second person, depending on the degree of formality or familiarity. It is common for different pronouns to be used when addressing friends, family, children and animals than when addressing superiors and adults with whom the speaker is less familiar. Examples of such languages include French, where the singulartuis used only for familiars, the pluralvousbeing used as a singular in other cases (Russian follows a similar pattern); German, where the third-person pluralsie(capitalized asSie) is used as both singular and plural in the second person in non-familiar uses; and Polish, where the nounpan( "gentleman" ) and its feminine and plural equivalents are used as polite second-person pronouns. For more details, seeT–V distinction.

Some languages, such asJapanese,Koreanand manySoutheast Asian languageslikeVietnamese,Thai,andIndonesian,have pronouns that reflect deep-seated societal categories. In these languages there is generally a small set of nouns that refer to the discourse participants, but these referential nouns are not usually used (pronoun avoidance), with proper nouns, deictics, and titles being used instead (and once the topic is understood, usually no explicit reference is made at all). A speaker chooses which word to use depending on the rank, job, age, gender, etc. of the speaker and the addressee. For instance, in Japanese, in formal situations, adults usually refer to themselves aswatashior the even more politewatakushi,while young men may use the student-likebokuand police officers may usehonkan( "this officer" ). In informal situations, women may use the colloquialatashi,and men may use the rougherore.

Case

Pronouns also often take different forms based on theirsyntacticfunction, and in particular on theirgrammatical case.English distinguishes thenominativeform (I,you,he,she,it,we,they), used principally as thesubjectof a verb, from theobliqueform (me,you,him,her,it,us,them), used principally as theobjectof a verb or preposition. Languages whose nouns inflect for case often inflect their pronouns according to the same case system; for example,Germanpersonal pronouns have distinct nominative, genitive, dative and accusative forms (ich,meiner,mir,mich;etc.). Pronouns often retain more case distinctions than nouns – this is true of both German and English, and also of theRomance languages,which (with the exception ofRomanian) have lost the Latin grammatical case for nouns, but preserve certain distinctions in the personal pronouns.

Other syntactic types of pronouns which may adopt distinct forms aredisjunctive pronouns,used in isolation and in certain distinct positions (such as after a conjunction likeand), andprepositional pronouns,used as the complement of a preposition.

Strong and weak forms

Some languages have strong and weak forms of personal pronouns, the former being used in positions with greaterstress.Some authors further distinguish weak pronouns fromcliticpronouns, which are phonetically less independent.^[6]^[7]

Examples are found in Polish, where the masculine third-person singular accusative and dative forms arejegoandjemu(strong) andgoandmu(weak). English hasstrong and weak pronunciationsfor some pronouns, such asthem(pronounced/ðɛm/when strong, but/ðəm/,/ɛm/,/əm/or even/m̩/when weak).

Free vs. bound pronouns

Some languages—for instance, mostAustralian Aboriginal languages—have distinct classes of free and bound pronouns. These are distinguished by theirmorphologicalindependence/dependence on other words respectively. In Australian languages, it is common for free pronouns to be reserved exclusively for human (and sometimes other animate)referents.^[8]Examples of languages withanimacyrestrictions on free pronouns includeWanyjirra,^[9]Bilinarra,^[10]Warrongo,^[11]Guugu Yimidhirr^[12]and many others. Bound pronouns can take a variety of forms, including verbalprefixes(these are usuallysubject markers—seeBardi^[13]—but can markobjectsas well—seeGuniyandi^[14]), verbalenclitics(includingpossessivemarkers) andauxiliarymorphemes. These various forms are exemplified below:

Free pronoun (Wangkatja^[15])

Nyimu-lu

dog-ERG

palu-nya

3-ABS

patjar-nu

bite-PST

'The dog bit it'

Verb prefix (Bardi^[13])

i-

3-

ng-

PST-

jalgoo

fall

-ij

-PFV

'he/she/it fell.'

Enclitic (Ngiyambaa^[16])

ngunhi=lu=na

gave=3.ERG=3.ABS

ngadhi

1SG.OBL

'He gave it to me'

Auxiliary morpheme (Wambaya^[17])

ya-ni

go-NPST

ka-lu

PRS-3PL.S

'They go/they are going.'

Possessive clitic (Ngaanyatjarra^[18])

Kuka-tju

meat-1SG

mantjila

get

purnpurntu-tju

fly-ERG

purrururruritjunku-tjaku

blow.it-lest

Get my meat so that the flies won't blow it

Reflexive and possessive forms

Languages may also havereflexive pronouns(and sometimesreciprocal pronouns) closely linked to the personal pronouns. English has the reflexive formsmyself,yourself,himself,herself,themself,theirself,itself,ourselves,yourselves,theirselves,themselves(there is alsooneself,from theindefinite pronounone). These are used mainly to replace the oblique form when referring to the same entity as the subject of the clause; they are also used asintensive pronoun(as inI did it myself).

Personal pronouns are also often associated withpossessiveforms. English has two sets of such forms: the possessivedeterminers(also called possessive adjectives)my,your,his,her,its,ourandtheir,and the possessive pronounsmine,yours,his,hers,its(rare),ours,theirs(for more details seeEnglish possessive). In informal usage both types of words may be called "possessive pronouns", even though the former kind do not function in place of nouns, but qualify a noun, and thus do not themselves function grammatically as pronouns.

Some languages, such as theSlavic languages,also have reflexive possessives (meaning "my own", "his own", etc.). These can be used to make a distinction from ordinary third-person possessives. For example, inSlovene:

Eva je dala Majisvojoknjigo( "Eva gave Majaher[reflexive] book ", i.e. Eva's own book)

Eva je dala Majinjenoknjigo( "Eva gave Majaher[non-reflexive] book ", i.e. Maja's book)

The same phenomenon occurs in theNorth Germanic languages,for exampleDanish,which can produce the sentencesAnna gav MariasinbogandAnna gav Mariahendesbog,the distinction being analogous to that in the Slovene example above.

Syntax

Antecedents

Third-person personal pronouns, and sometimes others, often have an explicitantecedent– anoun phrasewhich refers to the same person or thing as the pronoun (seeanaphora). The antecedent usually precedes the pronoun, either in the same sentence or in a previous sentence (although in some cases the pronoun may come before the antecedent). The pronoun may then be said to "replace" or "stand for" the antecedent, and to be used so as to avoid repeating the antecedent. Some examples:

John hid and we couldn't find him.(Johnis the antecedent ofhim)
After he lost his job, my father set up a small grocer's shop.(my fatheris the antecedent ofhe,although it comes after the pronoun)
We invited Mary and Tom. He came but she didn't.(Maryis the antecedent ofshe,andTomofhe)
I loved those bright orange socks. Can you lend them to me?(those bright orange socksis the antecedent ofthem)
Jane and I went out cycling yesterday. We did 30 miles.(Jane and Iis the antecedent ofwe)

Sometimes pronouns, even third-person ones, are used without specific antecedent, and the referent has to be deduced from the context. In other cases there may beambiguityas to what the intended antecedent is:

Alan was going to discuss it with Bob. He's always dependable.(the meaning ofheis ambiguous; the intended antecedent may be eitherAlanorBob)

Pronoun dropping

In some languages, subject or object pronouns can be dropped in certain situations (seePro-drop language). In particular, in anull-subject language,it is permissible for the subject of a verb to be omitted. Information about thegrammatical person(and possibly gender) of the subject may then be provided by the form of the verb. In such languages it is common for personal pronouns to appear in subject position only if they are needed to resolve ambiguity or if they arestressed.

Dummy pronouns

In some cases pronouns are used purely because they are required by the rules of syntax, even though they do not refer to anything; they are then calleddummy pronouns.This can be seen in English with the pronounitin such sentences asit is rainingandit is nice to relax.(This is less likely inpro-drop languages,since such pronouns would probably be omitted.)

Capitalization

Personal pronouns are not normallycapitalized,except in particular cases. In English the first-person subject pronounIis always capitalized, and in someChristiantexts the personal pronouns referring toJesusorGodare capitalized (He,Thou,etc.).

In many European languages, but not English, the second-person pronouns are often capitalized for politeness when they refer to the person one is writing to (such as in a letter).

For details, seeCapitalization § Pronouns.

Examples

Heshookher* hand.
Why doyoualways rely onmeto doyour* homework foryou?
Theytried to run away from the hunter, buthesethis* dogs afterthem.

*Words likeher,yourandhisare sometimes called (possessive) pronouns; other terms arepossessive determineror possessive adjective.

References

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