Standing in for other words
The Style Manual puts it simply: pronouns stand in for nouns. They can also stand in for groups of words that work as a noun (noun phrases and noun clauses), and some of them can act like determiners.
Most of the time a pronoun points back to someone or something already named. Cambridge’s grammar gives the example of a diner who complains to the chef: “She wasn’t very helpful so he spoke to the manager”, where she is the chef and he is the diner. The reader holds the noun in mind, and the pronoun saves repeating it.
Pronouns can be singular or plural: I and we, she and they, me and us. The Style Manual adds that people find content easier to read when the pronouns match their context.
The six kinds
The Style Manual names six main types of pronoun. Here they are, each with the Manual’s own list of members and its own example sentence.
| Type | What it does | Members include | The Style Manual’s example |
|---|---|---|---|
| Personal | Replaces the names of people or things | I, me, we, us, it, they, them, she, her, he, him | I gave her the report. She gave me a card. |
| Reflexive | Reflects the action of the verb back to the subject | myself, ourselves, itself, themself, themselves, herself, himself | I told myself I could finish on time. |
| Relative | Refers to a noun already known from the context | who, whom, whose, which, that | The person who wrote the report has left. |
| Interrogative | Asks a question | what, which, who, whom, whose | Who left the lights on in the office? |
| Demonstrative | Specifies which noun you mean | this, that, these, those | This is mine. That one is yours. |
| Indefinite | Doesn’t specify quantity or number | any, each, several, some | Do you have any feedback? Yes, I have some. |
Some words appear in two rows. Who, whom and whose are relative pronouns when they link a clause to a noun, and interrogative pronouns when they open a question; which does both jobs too. The kind depends on the work the word is doing in the sentence, not on the word alone.
And the possessives?
Some grammars give possessive pronouns a heading of their own; Cambridge’s grammar files them as “Pronouns: possessive”. The Style Manual handles these words a little differently. It notes that the term “possessive pronoun” is common, but says it is more accurate to divide these words in two: possessive pronouns, and determiners (also called possessive determiners).
This is your office. Put the report in its place.
That is theirs. The fault is ours.
The rule of thumb comes straight from the Manual: if the word appears before the noun, it is a determiner; if it appears in place of the noun, it is a possessive pronoun. Cambridge’s grammar draws the same line, and sets the two forms beside the personal pronoun each belongs to.
| Subject | Object | Before a noun | In place of a noun |
|---|---|---|---|
| I | me | my | mine |
| you | you | your | yours |
| he | him | his | his |
| she | her | her | hers |
| it | it | its | (its, rarely) |
| we | us | our | ours |
| they | them | their | theirs |
Subject and object forms from Cambridge’s page on personal pronouns; possessive forms from its page on possessives. Cambridge notes that its is avoided as a possessive pronoun except with own, as in “a life of its own”.
None of these forms takes an apostrophe, whichever side of the line it falls on. That one rule is the whole of the its or it’s drawer.
Case: why I becomes me
A personal pronoun changes its form depending on whether it is the subject or the object of the verb. The Style Manual calls this the pronoun’s case: I and they are in the subjective case, me and them in the objective.
I emailed them. (I is the subject, them is the object)
They emailed me. (They is the subject, me is the object)
Case sits behind the two questions taken up in I or me and who or whom.
Gender-neutral forms
The third-person singular pronouns he and she mark gender. The Style Manual gives gender-neutral forms to use instead: they for he or she, them for him or her, and their for his or hers. When they is used for one person in this way, it still takes the plural form of the verb: “they are”, not “they is”. Its long history has its own drawer, singular they.
That or which
The Style Manual’s advice on these two relative pronouns is to use that for essential information, and which, with punctuation, for information that is not essential. The difference can turn on two commas:
The press that prints the posters is in the back room. (of several presses, the one that prints posters)
The press, which prints the posters, is in the back room. (there is one press, and it happens to print posters)
The Manual adds that choosing between the two can be a matter of style. What makes the meaning clear is the punctuation around the relative pronoun.
Reflexives, kept for reflecting
A reflexive pronoun belongs where the subject is also the object of the verb: I emailed myself. The Style Manual gives two cautions. Don’t use one when the subject and object are different people or things (not “The manager emailed myself”), and don’t use one as the subject (not “My colleague and myself travelled with the delegation”). It also lists themself among the reflexives, beside themselves.
Sources for this drawer
- Australian Government Style Manual, Pronouns
- Australian Government Style Manual, Apostrophes (possessive pronouns and determiners)
- Cambridge Dictionary, English Grammar Today: Pronouns: personal and Pronouns: possessive