PRONOUNS

143. Kinds of Pronouns.

Study the italicized pronouns in these sentences:

1. I told you that he had gone.

2. Who was with him?

3. There was nobody with him except his two servants, who had never left him.

4. I saw one of them, and heard about the other.

Of these, I, you, and he are personal pronouns, I standing for the speaker, you for the person spoken to, and he for the person spoken of; who in sentence 3 is a relative pronoun, referring back to servants and introducing an adjective clause; Who in sentence 2 is an interrogative pronoun used to ask a question; nobody is an indefinite pronoun, standing for no particular person; one and other are adjective pronouns, because they may be followed by nouns-as, one man, other engagements-and thus become adjectives.

144. Personal Pronouns are pronouns that have different forms for the person speaking, the person spoken to, and the person or thing spoken of.

145. A Relative Pronoun is a pronoun that joins an adjective clause to a preceding noun or pronoun.

146. Interrogative Pronouns are used in asking questions.

147. Indefinite Pronouns indicate persons or things vaguely.

148. Adjective Pronouns are pronouns that may be used as adjectives.

I-PERSONAL PRONOUNS

149. Declension.

The pronoun of the first person is I; of the second, you or thou; of the third, he, she, it. The compounȧ pronouns—myself, ourselves; yourself, yourselves; himself, themselves-are really personal pronouns, but are not used in the possessive case. The pronouns of the three persons are declined thus:

THE PRONOUN OF THE FIRST PERSON

Poss. Obj.

you

PL.

you

SING.

thou

PL.

ye

your, yours your, yours thy, thine your, yours

150. The Two Forms of the Possessive.

It will be noticed that all of the personal pronouns except he and it have two forms for the possessive. The forms my, our, your, thy, her, and their are used when a noun follows; mine, ours, yours, thine, hers, and theirs are used when the noun is omitted:

1. Here is my hat; there is yours.

2. This is not their property; it is ours.

Such phrases as "of yours," "of his," "of theirs," etc., are examples of double possessives (§ 137, (4)). 151. Pronouns of the Second Person.

The forms of you are now the only forms regularly employed; thou, thy, thine, thee are heard only in prayer, in poetry, and sometimes among the Quakers. The latter use thee for thou. Thus Whittier, the Quaker poet, writes to Celia Thaxter:

I wish thee would write out for the Atlantic some of the good things thee know of the Shoals.

Thee survives in the colloquial thank'ee (thank thee) and in the poetical prithee (pray thee). All the forms of thou, both singular and plural, are consistently employed in the Bible; ye is there always nominative plural, and you always objective plural:

1. Thou and thy sons and thy father's house with thee shall bear the iniquity of the sanctuary.

Numbers 18: 1

2. And Reuben answered them, saying, Spake I not unto you, saying, Do not sin against the child; and ye would not hear?

Genesis 42: 22

3. At that day ye shall know that I am in my Father, and ye in me, and I in you.

John 14: 20

4. For if ye love them which love you, what reward have ye?

152. The Pronoun of the Third Person.

Matthew 5: 46

The pronoun of the third person is the only English pronoun that has a separate form for each of the three genders, he for the masculine, she for the feminine, and it for the neuter. But this distinction is made only in the singular, they being masculine, feminine, or neuter.

153. Uses of "It."

The pronoun it has three peculiar uses:

(1) As an expletive (§ 50, c). In this case the real subject follows the verb:

It is sad to think of that.

It was not true that he had confessed.

(2) As the subject of a few intransitive verbs which relate chiefly to the weather. These verbs cannot have a person for their subject, and are therefore called impersonal verbs:

It rains one minute and it sleets the next.

It is snowing fast.

You will find it a trifle hard to answer the questions, What rains? What snows? This proves that it does not always represent a noun, or even a clearly defined idea.

(3) As a vague indefinable object after a few verbs that usually take no object at all:

We footed it over the ice.

You can't come it over me in that style.

154. The Meaning of Person in Grammar.

How can it be a pronoun of the third person when it does not stand for the name of a person at all, but only for the name of a thing? Person in grammar means a real person only when we speak of the first person or of the second person; but when we speak of a pronoun of the third person, we mean a pronoun that stands for the name of a person, or an animal, or a thing, spoken of:

1. He is sick, but she is well.

2. This poor cow has lost her calf.

3. Those trees are tall, but they are not shady.
4. This house is pretty, but it is not comfortable.

155. The Person of Nouns.

Nouns are said to be in the first, second, or third person for the same reason that pronouns are. If a noun represents the name of the speaker-that is, if it is in apposition with I or we-it is in the first person: 1. I, Alexandre Manette, write this paper in my cell. 2. We, Tom and Jack, saw these things.

If the noun names the person spoken to, it is in the second person. Every nominative of address (§ 135, (4)), therefore, is in the second person:

3. Help me carry this, Henry.