1. The meaning of personal Pronoun
The writer would like to explain about pronouns before giving the definition of personal pronoun. Frank (1972:20) states that the traditional definition of pronoun is as a word that takes the places of a noun. Modern grammarians who regard position and function as the decisive factors in classifying a part of speech often consider pronoun as a subclass of noun.
The differences of many pronouns are more highly inflected for grammatical properties, (person, number, case and gender), and all pronouns lack the derivational endings (Such as; - tion, - ment) that nouns have.
According to Frank (1972:27), Pronouns have most of the same functions as noun, such as:
a. Subject of verb
e. g; They were late for their appointment
b. Object of verb
- Direct object: e. g; We enjoy ourselves at the party
- Indirect: e. g; We will send you the goods immediately
c. Subjective Complement
e. g; That’s the one
d. Object of preposition
e. g; After this, be more careful
e. Appositive
- Non – restrictive: Mary, one the most intelligent girls I know, is planning
to attend the university
- Restrictive: The men all got into boat
The word all, both and each used in close (restrictive) apposition. They may be in apposition to nouns or pronouns.
According to Yarber (2004: 116), Pronouns have various types, as they can be seen below:
a. Personal pronouns:
I, you, he, she, it, we, they, me, her, him, us, them, my, mine, your, yours, hers,
his, its, our, ours, their, theirs.
b. Indefinite :
all, another, any, anybody, anyone, anything, both, each, either, everybody,
everyone, everything, few, many, more, most, much, neither, nobody, none, no
one, nothing, one, other, several, some, somebody, someone, something, such.
c. Demonstrative:
this, that, these, those.
d. Relative:
who, whose, whom, which, what, that
e. Intensive and Reflexive:
myself, yourself, himself, itself, ourselves, yourselves, themelves.
f. Interrogative:
who, whose, whom, which, what
Because Personal pronouns are used often and because the cause most of problems in pronoun usage, the researcher will discuss about them. Personal pronouns are part of pronouns that are words that replace a noun or noun phrase, but they commonly refer to person and thing, as Martha (1991:331) said,
“Personal Pronouns are the ones we usually think of when the word pronoun comes to mind, we generally label them on the basis of person and members”.
There are four case forms of personal pronoun to indicate different sentence function: Subjective case, objective case, the possessive case, and reflexive case. Personal pronouns change their form for person (First, second and third), for case (subject, object, possessive), number (singular, plural) and gender (masculine, feminine, neuter), except for reflexive pronoun making the same kind of changes.
The table of Personal Pronoun
Subject Object Possessive
Adjective
Possessive
Pronoun
Reflexive
Singular I
You
He
She
it Me
You
Him
Her
It
My
Your
His
Her
Its
Mine
Yours
His
hers
Myself
Yourself
Himself
Herself
Itself
Plural We
You
They
Us
You
Them
Our
Your
Their
Ours
Yours
Theirs
Ourselves
Yourselves
Themselves
2. Type of personal pronoun
a. Subject pronoun
According to Teresa (1977:106) “ A pronoun in the subject group (I, she, he, we, they)” may be used in two ways:
1). As the subject of a verb
e. g; He is my brother (He is the subject of the verb is)
We girls gave a party (we is the subject of the verb gave)
He is taller than I (The sentence is not written out in full, it means “He is taller than I am (I is the subject of the verb am).
She plays as well as he (it means “she play as well as he does ”He is the subject of the verb does).
2. As a word that means the same as the subject.
e. g; That boy in the blue jeans is he (He is the same as the subject boy).
It was she all right (she is the same as the subject it. There fore the pronoun from of the subject group is used).
Personal pronouns appearing after the verb be (usually for identification of a person) take subject form in formal English: it is I, it is we, although in grammatically correct but many native speakers are not comfortable with those expression and modern usage English allows some exception for that rule: it is me and it is us widely used particularly in informal speech.
b. Object pronoun
Object pronoun appears after verbs or after preposition with a certain type of verb preposition combination, a pronoun object appears between the verb and preposition, example call him up.
Object pronoun or non-subject group (me, him, her, us, them, you) can be used in four ways:
(1). As direct object of verb:
e. g : They invited me (me is the direct object of verb invited)
(2). As indirect object of verb
e. g: They gave her a book (her is the indirect object of the verb gave. It comes before a direct object).
(3). As object of preposition
e. g : They taught it to him (him is the object of preposition)
(4). As subject of infinitive
e. g : They asked her to move (her is the subject of infinitive).
In a series of two (or more) subjects or objects, the pronoun I comes last for the sake of politeness.
e. g : my brother and I go to the movie
In American English, two personal pronouns do not usually occur together as an indirect and direct object combination, for this reason, the sentence. I gave it to him would be preferred to. I gave him it (but, I gave some, I gave him that).
c. Possessive Adjective
Possessive adjectives are followed immediately by a noun, they do not stand alone, but refer to the possessor and not to the thing possessived. My, your, his, her, its, our and their are determines, while in grammars and dictionary called .possessive adjective..
e. g; This is my hat (my is the possessive adjective of the possessor hat).
The possessive its is used only with a noun following and do not take apostrophe. It.s (with an apostrophe) means it is or it has in the present perfect.
d. Possessive Pronoun
Possessive pronouns are not followed immediately by a noun, they stand-alone. It also shows possession the same as in possessive adjective. Mine, yours, his, hers, ours, theirs are called pronoun and there is no pronoun its.
e. g : This book is mine (mine is the possessive pronoun, that shows possession).
e. Reflexive Pronoun
A reflexive pronoun is combination of – self with one of the personal pronoun or with the impersonal pronoun – one, generally refers to an animate being usually a person. The most common use of the reflexive pronoun is as an object that reflects back to the subject; it is used:
(1). As the direct object of the verb you must not blame yourself for that mistake. (the subject you and the object yourself have the same identity).
(2). As the indirect object of the verb
I bought myself a beautiful watch (or I bought a beautiful watch for myself).
He has never denied himself anything.
(3). As a prepositional object
of a verb : We should depend on ourselves rather than on others.
of a adjective : She’s angry with herself for making such a mistake.
In some prepositional phrases with reflexive pronouns that do not refers back to the subject and often regarded as informal are such as:
This is strictly between ourselves (or us)
The fault lies in ourselves (or us) not in our stars.
Did anyone see the money beside yourself (or you)?
In popular speech, reflexive pronoun is sometime used in the last part of a compound subject or object.
My wife and myself were invited to the party
Her teacher asked her friend and herself to help with the decoration.
A special use of reflexive pronoun is to intensify a noun or pronoun as subject or object.
As subject : We ourselves will lead the discussion ( = we and no one else). Or
We will lead the discussion ourselves
As object : I saw the chief himself
They want us to lead the discussion ourselves.
We spoke to the victims themselves.
3. Personal Pronoun Problems
According to Frank (1972:44), most of the learners have some difficulties in using the right personal pronoun. Here is some problem that leaner face:
a. A pronoun with two possible antecedents
Example : Whenever John is able to help his brother financially, he is very happy.
Corrected to: John is happy when he is able to help his brother financially.
Or : John’s brother is happy to receive financially help from John.
b. An unnecessary personal pronoun after a noun subject.
e. g ; my friends, they told me the whole story
Corrected to: My friends told me the whole story
c. Vague it. The personal pronoun it is used without a definite antecedent.
e. g; Because Jane had once had a bad accident while driving. She was afraid to try it again.
Corrected to: ….. She was afraid to try to drive again.
In certain colloquial idioms, a definite antecedent is not required for the personal pronoun it.
e. g; I hope you will like it here
The strain of final examinations is to great, I can’t take it
d. Too many it’s near each other personal it appears in close proximity with impersonal or anticipatory it
e. g ; We like it very much in this hotel. It is wonderful to relax in its comfortable atmosphere. It is possible we’ll stay in it again on our next vacation.
e. Loose use of it or they as subject
It or they is sometimes used as the subject of a verb, while the agent that should actually be the subjects is put in prepositional phrase.
e. g ; in the news paper, it says that the concert was canceled
Corrected to : The newspaper says that the concert was canceled.
e. g ; At the university, they require an examination for all entering freshmen
Corrected to : The university requires an examination for all entering freshmen.
f. Shift Pronoun number
e. g : The student must be made to understand how each lesson can be of value to them.
Corrected to : The student change to be students or Them changes to be him
g. Shift Person
“Third person” is not used in one part of a sentence if it is shifted back to the personal you
Example : A good song lends comfort to people, so that you feel less alone.
Corrected to: A good song lends comfort to you … or …, so that feel less alone.
h. Choice of case
Over corrected. It happens when there are two choices between subject (she) and object (her) case forms of pronouns. Many studentstend to use objective forms when standard English uses subject ones (him and me are friends), they automatically “overcorrect” in certain situations:
D Obj D Obj
Example : They appointed she and I to a subcommittee
As direct objects, the pronouns are supposed to be her and me. The fact that there are two direct objects instead of one, so nothing should be changed.
It is not allowed the case of a pronoun to be determined by a following appositive.
Example; parking is a tragic dilemma for we professor
Actually, it doesn’t mean to write for we, so it is not allowed to write for we professor.
Pronoun complements. It appears when the pronoun complements are often used in the objective case (that is him: it is them), they are supposed to be that is she and it is they. Only for pronoun me and us have special exception for this rule.
Pronoun following than or as, after than or as, a pronoun can be either subjective or objective case, depending on the intended meaning, it would be better to supply the omitted words:
Biff tackled Otto harder than (he did) me
He is stronger than I (am)
He is as tall as they (are).
The writer would like to explain about pronouns before giving the definition of personal pronoun. Frank (1972:20) states that the traditional definition of pronoun is as a word that takes the places of a noun. Modern grammarians who regard position and function as the decisive factors in classifying a part of speech often consider pronoun as a subclass of noun.
The differences of many pronouns are more highly inflected for grammatical properties, (person, number, case and gender), and all pronouns lack the derivational endings (Such as; - tion, - ment) that nouns have.
According to Frank (1972:27), Pronouns have most of the same functions as noun, such as:
a. Subject of verb
e. g; They were late for their appointment
b. Object of verb
- Direct object: e. g; We enjoy ourselves at the party
- Indirect: e. g; We will send you the goods immediately
c. Subjective Complement
e. g; That’s the one
d. Object of preposition
e. g; After this, be more careful
e. Appositive
- Non – restrictive: Mary, one the most intelligent girls I know, is planning
to attend the university
- Restrictive: The men all got into boat
The word all, both and each used in close (restrictive) apposition. They may be in apposition to nouns or pronouns.
According to Yarber (2004: 116), Pronouns have various types, as they can be seen below:
a. Personal pronouns:
I, you, he, she, it, we, they, me, her, him, us, them, my, mine, your, yours, hers,
his, its, our, ours, their, theirs.
b. Indefinite :
all, another, any, anybody, anyone, anything, both, each, either, everybody,
everyone, everything, few, many, more, most, much, neither, nobody, none, no
one, nothing, one, other, several, some, somebody, someone, something, such.
c. Demonstrative:
this, that, these, those.
d. Relative:
who, whose, whom, which, what, that
e. Intensive and Reflexive:
myself, yourself, himself, itself, ourselves, yourselves, themelves.
f. Interrogative:
who, whose, whom, which, what
Because Personal pronouns are used often and because the cause most of problems in pronoun usage, the researcher will discuss about them. Personal pronouns are part of pronouns that are words that replace a noun or noun phrase, but they commonly refer to person and thing, as Martha (1991:331) said,
“Personal Pronouns are the ones we usually think of when the word pronoun comes to mind, we generally label them on the basis of person and members”.
There are four case forms of personal pronoun to indicate different sentence function: Subjective case, objective case, the possessive case, and reflexive case. Personal pronouns change their form for person (First, second and third), for case (subject, object, possessive), number (singular, plural) and gender (masculine, feminine, neuter), except for reflexive pronoun making the same kind of changes.
The table of Personal Pronoun
Subject Object Possessive
Adjective
Possessive
Pronoun
Reflexive
Singular I
You
He
She
it Me
You
Him
Her
It
My
Your
His
Her
Its
Mine
Yours
His
hers
Myself
Yourself
Himself
Herself
Itself
Plural We
You
They
Us
You
Them
Our
Your
Their
Ours
Yours
Theirs
Ourselves
Yourselves
Themselves
2. Type of personal pronoun
a. Subject pronoun
According to Teresa (1977:106) “ A pronoun in the subject group (I, she, he, we, they)” may be used in two ways:
1). As the subject of a verb
e. g; He is my brother (He is the subject of the verb is)
We girls gave a party (we is the subject of the verb gave)
He is taller than I (The sentence is not written out in full, it means “He is taller than I am (I is the subject of the verb am).
She plays as well as he (it means “she play as well as he does ”He is the subject of the verb does).
2. As a word that means the same as the subject.
e. g; That boy in the blue jeans is he (He is the same as the subject boy).
It was she all right (she is the same as the subject it. There fore the pronoun from of the subject group is used).
Personal pronouns appearing after the verb be (usually for identification of a person) take subject form in formal English: it is I, it is we, although in grammatically correct but many native speakers are not comfortable with those expression and modern usage English allows some exception for that rule: it is me and it is us widely used particularly in informal speech.
b. Object pronoun
Object pronoun appears after verbs or after preposition with a certain type of verb preposition combination, a pronoun object appears between the verb and preposition, example call him up.
Object pronoun or non-subject group (me, him, her, us, them, you) can be used in four ways:
(1). As direct object of verb:
e. g : They invited me (me is the direct object of verb invited)
(2). As indirect object of verb
e. g: They gave her a book (her is the indirect object of the verb gave. It comes before a direct object).
(3). As object of preposition
e. g : They taught it to him (him is the object of preposition)
(4). As subject of infinitive
e. g : They asked her to move (her is the subject of infinitive).
In a series of two (or more) subjects or objects, the pronoun I comes last for the sake of politeness.
e. g : my brother and I go to the movie
In American English, two personal pronouns do not usually occur together as an indirect and direct object combination, for this reason, the sentence. I gave it to him would be preferred to. I gave him it (but, I gave some, I gave him that).
c. Possessive Adjective
Possessive adjectives are followed immediately by a noun, they do not stand alone, but refer to the possessor and not to the thing possessived. My, your, his, her, its, our and their are determines, while in grammars and dictionary called .possessive adjective..
e. g; This is my hat (my is the possessive adjective of the possessor hat).
The possessive its is used only with a noun following and do not take apostrophe. It.s (with an apostrophe) means it is or it has in the present perfect.
d. Possessive Pronoun
Possessive pronouns are not followed immediately by a noun, they stand-alone. It also shows possession the same as in possessive adjective. Mine, yours, his, hers, ours, theirs are called pronoun and there is no pronoun its.
e. g : This book is mine (mine is the possessive pronoun, that shows possession).
e. Reflexive Pronoun
A reflexive pronoun is combination of – self with one of the personal pronoun or with the impersonal pronoun – one, generally refers to an animate being usually a person. The most common use of the reflexive pronoun is as an object that reflects back to the subject; it is used:
(1). As the direct object of the verb you must not blame yourself for that mistake. (the subject you and the object yourself have the same identity).
(2). As the indirect object of the verb
I bought myself a beautiful watch (or I bought a beautiful watch for myself).
He has never denied himself anything.
(3). As a prepositional object
of a verb : We should depend on ourselves rather than on others.
of a adjective : She’s angry with herself for making such a mistake.
In some prepositional phrases with reflexive pronouns that do not refers back to the subject and often regarded as informal are such as:
This is strictly between ourselves (or us)
The fault lies in ourselves (or us) not in our stars.
Did anyone see the money beside yourself (or you)?
In popular speech, reflexive pronoun is sometime used in the last part of a compound subject or object.
My wife and myself were invited to the party
Her teacher asked her friend and herself to help with the decoration.
A special use of reflexive pronoun is to intensify a noun or pronoun as subject or object.
As subject : We ourselves will lead the discussion ( = we and no one else). Or
We will lead the discussion ourselves
As object : I saw the chief himself
They want us to lead the discussion ourselves.
We spoke to the victims themselves.
3. Personal Pronoun Problems
According to Frank (1972:44), most of the learners have some difficulties in using the right personal pronoun. Here is some problem that leaner face:
a. A pronoun with two possible antecedents
Example : Whenever John is able to help his brother financially, he is very happy.
Corrected to: John is happy when he is able to help his brother financially.
Or : John’s brother is happy to receive financially help from John.
b. An unnecessary personal pronoun after a noun subject.
e. g ; my friends, they told me the whole story
Corrected to: My friends told me the whole story
c. Vague it. The personal pronoun it is used without a definite antecedent.
e. g; Because Jane had once had a bad accident while driving. She was afraid to try it again.
Corrected to: ….. She was afraid to try to drive again.
In certain colloquial idioms, a definite antecedent is not required for the personal pronoun it.
e. g; I hope you will like it here
The strain of final examinations is to great, I can’t take it
d. Too many it’s near each other personal it appears in close proximity with impersonal or anticipatory it
e. g ; We like it very much in this hotel. It is wonderful to relax in its comfortable atmosphere. It is possible we’ll stay in it again on our next vacation.
e. Loose use of it or they as subject
It or they is sometimes used as the subject of a verb, while the agent that should actually be the subjects is put in prepositional phrase.
e. g ; in the news paper, it says that the concert was canceled
Corrected to : The newspaper says that the concert was canceled.
e. g ; At the university, they require an examination for all entering freshmen
Corrected to : The university requires an examination for all entering freshmen.
f. Shift Pronoun number
e. g : The student must be made to understand how each lesson can be of value to them.
Corrected to : The student change to be students or Them changes to be him
g. Shift Person
“Third person” is not used in one part of a sentence if it is shifted back to the personal you
Example : A good song lends comfort to people, so that you feel less alone.
Corrected to: A good song lends comfort to you … or …, so that feel less alone.
h. Choice of case
Over corrected. It happens when there are two choices between subject (she) and object (her) case forms of pronouns. Many studentstend to use objective forms when standard English uses subject ones (him and me are friends), they automatically “overcorrect” in certain situations:
D Obj D Obj
Example : They appointed she and I to a subcommittee
As direct objects, the pronouns are supposed to be her and me. The fact that there are two direct objects instead of one, so nothing should be changed.
It is not allowed the case of a pronoun to be determined by a following appositive.
Example; parking is a tragic dilemma for we professor
Actually, it doesn’t mean to write for we, so it is not allowed to write for we professor.
Pronoun complements. It appears when the pronoun complements are often used in the objective case (that is him: it is them), they are supposed to be that is she and it is they. Only for pronoun me and us have special exception for this rule.
Pronoun following than or as, after than or as, a pronoun can be either subjective or objective case, depending on the intended meaning, it would be better to supply the omitted words:
Biff tackled Otto harder than (he did) me
He is stronger than I (am)
He is as tall as they (are).
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