Advanced Pronouns Tips for Grade 9 Students

A pronoun is a word that is used instead of a noun or noun phrase. Pronouns refer to either a noun which is already mentioned or to a noun that does not require to be named specifically. 

The common pronouns are the personal pronouns which are mostly used on a day-to-day basis, which refer to the person or people writing or speaking (1st person), the person or people being spoken to (2nd person), or other people or things (3rd person). Like nouns, personal pronouns can perform as either the subject of a verb or the object of a verb or preposition: “He likes her, but she loves him.” 

A pronoun that presents a relative clause is called a relative pronoun as it relates to the word that its relative clause modifies. Here is an example: 

The gentleman who called me last night is my Tutor. 

In the above example, “who” relates to “The person,” which “who called me last night” juxtaposes and introduces the relative clause “who called me last night.” 

There are five basic relative pronouns: Who, whom, whose, which, and that. 

The Other Types of Pronouns Include:  

• The interrogative pronouns primarily include what, which, who, whom, and whose. Which introduce questions for which a noun is the answer, as in “What do you prefer, tea or coffee?” 
• Possessive pronouns primarily refer to things or people that belong to someone. Examples include mine, yours, his, hers, its, ours, and theirs. 
• The demonstrative pronouns include this, that, these, and those. It helps distinguish the person or thing being referred to from other people or things; they are identical to the demonstrative adjectives. 
• Reflexive pronouns form the subject of a sentence or clause. They are formed by adding “self” or “selves” to a personal pronoun or possessive adjective, as in himself, herself, ourselves, and itself. 
• Indefinite pronouns, i.e., everybody, either, none, and something, do not refer to anything, but they usually refer to an unidentified or unfamiliar person or thing. 

The words “it” and “there” can be used like pronouns when the rules of grammar require a subject, but no noun is being referred to. Both are mostly used at the beginning of a sentence or clause, as in “It was almost evening” and “There is some cake left.” These are sometimes referred to as expletives.