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Pronoun

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For the Wikipedia guideline about pronouns, see Wikipedia:Pronoun

Examples
Who says so? That reminds me of something. He looked at them. Take it or leave it (Impersonal pronoun). I love you.

Personal pronouns

Standard English personal pronouns: You | Thou | We | They | Them | It Parts of speech: Subjective Possessive Determinacy: Dummy Generic you Singular they Inclusive and exclusive we Pluralis majestatis T-V distinction Gender issues: Androgynous Gender-specific Gender-neutral Spivak | Ve | Xe | Ze | Sie/hir Slang: Y'all | Yinz Other languages: French, personal Spanish Portuguese Chinese Japanese Vietnamese

In linguistics and grammar, a pronoun (Lat: pronomen) is a pro-form that substitutes for a noun (or noun phrase) with or without a determiner, such as you and they in English. The replaced phrase is called the antecedent of the pronoun.

For example, consider the sentence "Lisa gave the coat to Phil." All three nouns in the sentence can be replaced by pronouns: "She gave it to him." If the coat, Lisa, and Phil have been previously mentioned, the listener can deduce what the pronouns she, it and him refer to and therefore understand the meaning of the sentence. However, if the sentence "She gave it to him" is the first presentation of the idea, none of the pronouns have antecedents and each pronoun is therefore ambiguous. Pronouns without antecedents are also called unprecursed pronouns.

Contents [hide] 1 Types of pronouns 2 Pronouns and determiners 3 See also 4 References 5 External links

[edit] Types of pronouns

Common types of pronouns found in the world's languages are as follows.

• Personal pronouns stand in place of the names of people or things:
  • Subjective pronouns are used when the person or thing is the subject of the sentence or clause. English example: I like to eat chips, but she does not.
    • Second person formal and informal pronouns (T-V distinction). For example, vous and tu in French. There is no distinction in modern English, though Elizabethan English marked the distinction with "thou" (singular informal) and "you" (plural or singular formal).
    • Inclusive and exclusive "we" pronouns indicate whether the audience is included. There is no distinction in English.
    • Intensive pronouns re-emphasize a noun or pronoun that has already been mentioned. English uses the same forms as for the reflexive pronouns; for example: I did it myself (contrast reflexive use I did it to myself).
  • Objective pronouns are used when the person or thing is the object of the sentence or clause. English example: John likes me but not her.
    • Direct and indirect object pronouns. English uses the same forms for both; for example: Mary loves him (direct object); Mary sent him a letter (indirect object).
    • Reflexive pronouns are used when a person or thing acts on itself. English example: John cut himself.
    • Reciprocal pronouns refer to a reciprocal relationship. English example: They do not like each other.
  • Prepositional pronouns come after a preposition. No distinct forms exist in English; for example: Mary looked at him.
  • Disjunctive pronouns are used in isolation, or in certain other special grammatical contexts. No distinct forms exist in English; for example: Who does this belong to? Me.
  • Dummy pronouns are used when grammatical rules require a noun (or pronoun), but none is semantically required. English example: It is raining.
  • Weak pronouns.
• Possessive pronouns are used to indicate possession or ownership.
  • In strict sense, the possessive pronouns are only those that act syntactically as nouns. English example: Those clothes are mine.
  • Often, though, the term "possessive pronoun" is also applied to the so-called possessive adjectives (or possessive determiners). For example, in English: I lost my wallet. They are not strictly speaking pronouns because they do not substitute for a noun or noun phrase, and as such, some grammarians classify these terms in a separate lexical category called determiners (they have a syntactic role close to that of adjectives, always qualifying a noun).
• Demonstrative pronouns distinguish the particular objects or people that are referred to from other possible candidates. English example: I shall take these.
• Indefinite pronouns refer to general categories of people or things. English example: Anyone can do that.
  • Distributive pronouns are used to refer to members of a group separately, rather than collectively. English example: To each his own.
  • Negative pronouns indicate the non-existence of people or things. English example: Nobody thinks that.
• Relative pronouns refer back to people or things previously mentioned. English example: People who smoke should quit now.
  • Indefinite relative pronouns have some of the properties of both relative pronouns and indefinite pronouns. They have a sense of "referring back", but the person or thing to which they refer has not previously been explicitly named. English example: I know what I like.
• Interrogative pronouns ask which person or thing is meant. English example: Who did that?
  • In many languages (e.g., Czech, English, French, Interlingua, Russian) the sets of relative and interrogative pronouns are nearly identical. Compare English: Who is that? (interrogative) to I know who that is. (relative).

[edit] Pronouns and determiners

Pronouns and determiners are closely related, and some linguists think pronouns are actually determiners without a noun phrase.^[1] The following chart shows their relationships in English.

	Pronoun	Determiner
Personal (1st/2nd)	we	we Scotsmen
Possessive	ours	our homeland
Demonstrative	this	this gentleman
Indefinite	some	some frogs
Interrogative	who	which black hole

the voyage of the dawn treader

The two youngest Pevensie children, Lucy and Edmund, are staying with their cousin Eustace Scrubb while their older brother Peter is studying for his university entrance exams with Professor Kirke, and their older sister Susan is traveling through America. Edmund, Lucy, and Eustace are drawn into the Narnian world, literally pulled into a picture of a ship at sea. (The painting, hanging neglected in the guest bedroom that the Pevensie children were using, had been an unwanted present to Eustace's parents.) The three children land in the water near the pictured vessel, the titular Dawn Treader, and are taken aboard.

The Dawn Treader is the ship of Caspian X, King of Narnia, who was the key character in the previous book (Prince Caspian). Edmund and Lucy (along with Peter and Susan) helped him gain the throne from his evil uncle Miraz.

Three years have passed since then, peace has been established in Narnia, and Caspian has undertaken his oath to find the seven lost Lords of Narnia. Lucy and Edmund are delighted to be back in Narnia, but Eustace is less enthusiastic, as he has never been there before and had taunted his cousins with his belief that the country never existed. The talking mouse Reepicheep is also on board, as he hopes to find Aslan's country beyond the seas of the "utter East".

They first make landfall in the Lone Islands, nominally Narnian territory but fallen away from Narnian ways: in particular the slave trade flourishes here, despite Narnian law stating that it is forbidden. Caspian, Lucy, Edmund, Eustace and Reepicheep are captured as merchandise by a slave trader, and a man "buys" Caspian before they even reach the slave market. He turns out to be the first lost lord, Lord Bern, who moved to the islands and married a woman there after being banished from Narnia by Miraz. When Caspian reveals his identity, Bern acknowledges him as King. Caspian reclaims the islands for Narnia, and replaces Gumpas, the greedy governor, with Lord Bern, whom he names Duke of the Lone Islands.

At the second island they visit, Eustace leaves the group to avoid doing any work, and hides in a dead dragon's cave to escape a sudden downpour. The dragon's treasure arouses his greed: he fills his pockets with gold and jewels and puts on a large golden bracelet; but as he sleeps, he is transformed into a dragon. As a dragon, he becomes aware of how bad his previous behaviour was, and uses his strength to help make amends. Aslan turns Eustace back into a boy, now a much nicer person. Caspian recognizes the bracelet when Eustace is finally able to get it off: it belonged to Lord Octesian, another of the lost lords. They speculate that the dragon killed Octesian — or even that the dragon was Octesian.

They make stops at Burnt Island; at Deathwater Island (so named for a pool of water which turns everything immersed in it into gold, including one of the missing lords who turns out to have been Lord Restimar); at the Duffers' Island; and at the Island Where Dreams Come True — called the Dark Island since it is permanently hidden in darkness. They rescue a desperate Lord Rhoop from this last. Eventually they reach the Island of the Star, where they find the three remaining lost lords in enchanted sleep. Ramandu, the fallen star who lives on the island, tells them that the only way to awaken them is to sail to the edge of the world and there to leave one member of the crew behind.

The Dawn Treader continues sailing into an area where merpeople dwell and the water turns sweet rather than salty. At last the water becomes so shallow that the ship can go no farther. Caspian orders a boat lowered and announces that he will go to the world's end with Reepicheep. The crew object, saying that as King of Narnia he has no right to abandon them. Caspian goes to his cabin in a temper, but returns to say that Aslan appeared in his cabin and told him that only Lucy, Edmund, Eustace, and Reepicheep will go on.

These last venture in a small boat through an ocean of flowers until they reach a wall of water that extends into the sky. Fulfilling Ramandu's condition, Reepicheep paddles his coracle up the waterfall and is never again seen in Narnia (Lewis hints that he reaches Aslan's country). Edmund, Eustace, and Lucy find a lamb, who transforms into Aslan and tells them that Edmund and Lucy will not return to Narnia – that they should learn to know him by another name in their own world. He then sends the children home.

In their own world, everyone remarks on how Eustace has changed and "you'd never know him for the same boy" - although his mother does not acknowledge this and belives that Edmund and Lucy have been a bad influence on him.

Back in Narnia, Caspian marries Ramandau's daughter, and the three sleeping lords awaken.