subject: The Personal, Reflexive and Emphatic pronouns [print this page] A pronoun is a word that is used instead of a noun and it changes its form to indicate person, number, gender, and case.
E.g. Jack is a lucky child. Everybody likes him. His parents are proud of their son. They want to see him become a doctor. (Here the pronouns used are: everybody, him, his, they, their.)
We use pronouns to avoid repetition of nouns. A pronoun is, thus, equivalent to a noun.
Pronouns can be used correctly only if the words they replace, the antecedent, are clearly identified.
A pronoun when it refers to a person is called a personal pronoun. E.g.:
I like feeding the poor.
He was standing before you.
She does not like it.
We are waiting for our bus.
They are in the classroom.
Personal pronouns belong to three categories: first person, second person and third person.
The personal pronouns of the first person indicate the speaker. E.g. I, we, me, us, my, mine, our, ours.
The personal pronouns of the second person indicate the person spoken to. E.g. you, your, yours.
The personal pronouns of the third person indicate the person, place or thing spoken about. E.g. He, she, it, they, him, her, his, its, their, theirs.
If pronouns of different persons occur together in a sentence, the pronouns of the second person should be placed first, those, of the third person after it and those of the first person last of all; as,
You, he and I are friends.
You and he did your duty.
You and I have done our duty.
You, they and we are members of the same club.
NOTE: While admitting a fault it is more polite to say:
I and he are in the wrong.
I and you should not have abused the stranger.
A pronoun that reflects (shows) the action of the subject on the subject itself is called the Reflexive Pronoun.
It is used to show that the action of the subject (doer) refers back to the subject (doer) itself. E.g.: Jane hit herself. (Here the reflexive pronoun herself' refers back to the subject Jane'.) You should tell yourself not to worry. She allowed herself some extra time.
When the gender of a being (baby, animal, bird etc) is unclear it is correct to use the reflexive pronoun "itself." E.g.: The cat was scratching itself.
Do not use reflexive pronouns unnecessarily.
E.g.: Incorrect. My father and myself just moved to Nagpur.
Correct. My father and I just moved to Nagpur.
The pronouns used with the subject for the sake of emphasis are called Emphatic Pronouns. E.g. Harry himself is to blame for his troubles. Here the pronoun himself' lays emphasis on the subject Harry' (who is responsible for his troubles.)
It is notable that an emphatic pronoun comes right after the subject. If it comes later in the sentence, it is a reflexive pronoun. Further emphatic and reflexive pronouns change the meaning of the sentence in different ways. Compare:
a. He himself gave the demonstration of the process.
b. He tried giving himself a demonstration of the process.
