Personal pronouns are pronouns used as substitutes for proper or common nouns.

All known languages contain personal pronouns.

English personal pronouns

Main article: English personal pronouns English in common use today has seven personal pronouns:

first-person singular (I) first-person plural (we) second-person singular and plural (you) third-person singular human or animate female (she) third-person singular human or animate male (he) third-person singular inanimate (it) third-person plural (they)

Each pronoun has up to five forms:

A nominative form (I/we) used as the subject of a finite verb as cited above. An oblique form (me/us/etc.) used as the object of a verb or of a preposition A reflexive form (myself/ourselves/etc.) which replaces the oblique form in referring to the same entity as the subject. And two possessive forms (my/our/etc. and mine/ours/etc.). These are used to stand for the possessor of another noun one that is used as a determiner, and one that is used as a pronoun or a predicate adjective. The former are sometimes not included among the pronouns, since they do not act as nouns, but have a role closer to that of adjectives. Nevertheless, the term "pronoun" is frequently applied to both, at least informally. The two sets of pronouns are sometimes distinguished with the terms "possessive determiners" or "possessive adjectives", and "possessive pronouns", respectively.

[edit]Usage In standard usage in English, every verb should have an explicit subject, except for an imperative verb (a command) where the subject is always "you" (singular/plural), even when the context is already understood, or could easily be understood by reading the sentences that follow. Therefore, either an explicit noun, personal pronoun, relative pronoun, demonstrative pronoun, interrogative pronoun, indefinite pronoun, reflexive pronoun, possessive pronoun or correlative pronoun has to be supplied as the subject of a non-imperative verb. Personal pronouns, demonstrative pronouns, reflexive pronouns and possessive pronouns typically also have explicit antecedents when in the third person. Therefore one does not normally use the word "he" to refer to somebody or "this" to refer to something if the person reading or hearing the phrase does not know to whom one is referring. However, once someone or something has been explicitly mentioned and can be easily identified as the subject, the third person personal pronoun is usually used in place of it. Thus the subject is often made explicit at its first occurrence in a paragraph, and subsequently substituted with its personal pronoun.

In addition, personal pronouns must be in agreement with the correct gender and number of people or objects being described. Using the word "it" in English to refer to a person, for example, is usually considered extremely derogatory. It is generally not accepted to use a singular version of a pronoun for a plural noun, and vice versa. An exception is the informal use of "they" to refer to one person when sex is unknown: "If somebody took my book, they'd better give it back" (see singular they). Apart from "I" which is always capitalised, personal pronouns are generally lower-case letters unless they are at the beginning of a sentence, unlike a proper noun for which the first letter is capitalized. One notable exception is in some translations of the Christian Bible, in which the first letter of the personal pronouns referring to either Jesus or God are capitalized. In French, pronouns include "je", "nous", "tu", "vous", "ils", "elles", "lui", "toi", "moi", "on", etc. There are different pronouns used for different genders and numbers of people, and unlike English where "them" and "they" are used for every object whether it is masculine or feminine, in French the plural forms vary according to gender. In addition, in French, different pronouns are used for indirect objects of a sentence than direct objects. Interlingua pronouns also vary by number and gender: singular "io", "tu", and "ille", for example, correspond with plural "nos", "vos", and "illes". Like French, Interlingua has different pronouns for different genders and numbers. "Ille" and "illes" are masculine and general, for example, while "illa" and "illas" are feminine. Unlike French, however, verbs remain the same for all pronouns: "Illa lege un articulo" she is reading an article "Illas lege articulos" they (feminine) are reading articles [edit]Other types of personal pronouns Pronouns usually show the basic distinctions of person (typically a three-way distinction between first, second, and third persons) andnumber (typically singular vs. plural), but they may also feature other categories such as case (nominative we vs. oblique us in English),gender (masculine he vs. feminine she in English), and animacy or humanness (human who vs. nonhuman what in English). These can of course vary greatly. The English dialect spoken in Dorset uses ee for animates and er for inanimates. Many pronoun systems, including some used in Indo-European languages, (e.g., Ancient Greek) have a dual number in addition to plural. This distinction existed in Anglo-Saxon but died out by Middle English. Other examples of this in other language families includeClassical Hebrew and Arabic. In addition, the 'trial' (we three) is found in some languages. Some languages distinguish between inclusive and exclusive first-person plural pronounsthose that do and do not include their audience, respectively. For example, Tok Pisin has seven first-person pronouns according to number (singular, dual, trial, plural) and inclusiveness/exclusiveness, such as mitripela (they two and I) and yumitripela (you two and I). This is common in languages spoken in traditional societies, such as Quechua and Melanesian languages. This may be related to the existence of moieties in the culture.

Slavic languages have two different third-person (one reflexive, one not). For example, in Slovene:

genitive

pronouns

Eva je dala Maji svojo knjigo: Ana gave Maria her (reflexive) book; i.e., Eva gave her own book to Maja. Eva je dala Maji njeno knjigo: Ana gave Maria her (non-reflexive) book; i.e., Eva gave Maja's book to her. The same phenomenon can be seen in North Germanic languages. For example, in Danish, this is, respectively: Anna gav Maria sin bog Anna gav Maria hendes bog The pronoun may encode politeness and formality. Many languages have different pronouns for informal use or use among friends, and for formal use or use about/towards superiors, especially in the second person. A common pattern is the so-called T-V distinction(named after the use of pronouns beginning in t- and v- in Romance languages, as in French tu and vous). It is very common for pronouns to show more grammatical distinctions than nouns. The Romance languages (with the exception ofRomanian) have lost the Latin grammatical case for nouns, but preserve the distinction in the pronouns. The same holds for English with respect to its Germanic ancestor. It is also not uncommon for languages not to have third-person pronouns. In those cases the usual way to refer to third persons is by using demonstratives or full noun phrases. Latin made do without third-person pronouns, replacing them with demonstratives (which are in fact the source of thirdperson pronouns in all Romance languages). Some languages, such as Japanese and Korean, have pronouns that reflect deep-seated societal categories. This is an extension of the politeness and formality distinctions found in other languages. In these languages there is a small set of nouns that refer to the discourse participants. These referential nouns are not usually used, with proper nouns, deictics, and titles being used instead. Usually, once the topic is understood, no explicit reference is made at all. In Japanese sentences, subjects are not obligatory, so the speaker chooses which word to use depending on the rank, job, age, gender, etc. of the speaker and the addressee. For instance, in formal situations, adults usually refer to themselves as watashi or the even more polite watakushi, while young men may use the student-like boku and police officers may use honkan ("this officer"). In informal situations, women may use the colloquial atashi, and men may use the rougher ore.

Other common distinctions made with personal pronouns found in the world's languages include:

disjunctive pronouns; intensive pronouns; prepositional pronouns; direct and indirect object pronouns; reciprocal pronouns; weak pronouns.

[edit]Null-subject and pro-drop languages Main articles: Pro-drop language and Null subject language In some languages, a pronoun is required whenever a noun or noun phrase needs to be referenced, and sometimes even when no such antecedent exists (cf the dummy pronoun in English it rains). In many other languages, however, pronouns can be omitted when unnecessary or when context makes it clear who or what is being talked about. Such languages are called nullsubject languages (when subject pronouns may be omitted), or pro-drop languages (when, more generally, subject or object pronouns may be omitted). In some cases the information about the antecedent is preserved in the verb, through its conjugation.

Personal Pronouns
Personal pronouns represent specific people or things. We use them depending on:

number: singular (eg: I) or plural (eg: we) person: 1st person (eg: I), 2nd person (eg: you) or 3rd person (eg: he) gender: male (eg: he), female (eg: she) or neuter (eg: it) case: subject (eg: we) or object (eg: us)

We use personal pronouns in place of the person or people that we are talking about. My name is Josef but when I am talking about myself I almost always use "I" or "me", not "Josef". When I am talking direct to you, I almost always use "you", not your name. When I am talking about another person, say John, I may start with "John" but then use "he" or "him". And so on. Here are the personal pronouns, followed by some example sentences: number person gender personal pronouns subject singular 1st 2nd 3rd male/female male/female male female neuter plural 1st 2nd 3rd male/female male/female male/female/neuter I you he she it we you they object me you him her it us you them

Examples (in each case, the first example shows a subject pronoun, the second an object pronoun):

I like coffee. John helped me. Do you like coffee? John loves you.

He runs fast. Did Ram beat him? She is clever. Does Mary know her? It doesn't work. Can the engineer repair it? We went home. Anthony drove us. Do you need a table for three? Did John and Mary beat you at doubles? They played doubles. John and Mary beat them.

When we are talking about a single thing, we almost always use it. However, there are a few exceptions. We may sometimes refer to an animal as he/him or she/her, especially if the animal is domesticated or a pet. Ships (and some other vessels or vehicles) as well as some countries are often treated as female and referred to as she/her. Here are some examples:

This is our dog Rusty. He's an Alsation. The Titanic was a great ship but she sank on her first voyage. My first car was a Mini and I treated her like my wife. Thailand has now opened her border with Cambodia.

For a single person, sometimes we don't know whether to use he or she. There are several solutions to this:

If a teacher needs help, he or she should see the principal. If a teacher needs help, he should see the principal. If a teacher needs help, they should see the principal.

We often use it to introduce a remark:

It is nice to have a holiday sometimes. It is important to dress well. It's difficult to find a job. Is it normal to see them together? It didn't take long to walk here.

We also often use it to talk about the weather, temperature, time and distance:

It's raining. It will probably be hot tomorrow. Is it nine o'clock yet? It's 50 kilometres from here to Cambridge.

Pronouns (Pronomes)
Personal Pronouns (Pronomes Pessoais)
Number Person 1st 2nd Sg. 3rd m f polite refl. 1st 2nd Pl. 3rd m f polite refl. Subject eu I tu you ele he ela she voc you -ns we vs you eles they elas they vocs you -Direct Object me me te you o him a her voc you se him/herself nos us vos you os them as them vocs you se themselves without preposition me (to) me te (to) you lhe (to) him / her voc you se (to) him/herself nos (to) us vos (to) you lhes (to) them vocs (to) you se (to) themselves

Indirect Obj

Note: The forms migo, tigo, sigo, nosco, vosco inherit the classical Latin forms mecum, tecum, secum, nobiscum, vobiscum, which are obtained by suffixing the preposition cum (Port. com) with at the pronouns. The forms comigo, contigo, consigo, connosco, convosco are derived by prefixing the preposition com at the pronouns. The same phenomenon is observed inSpanish.

Possessive Pronouns (Pronomes Possessivos)

In Portuguese the Possessive Pronouns are identical in form with the Possessive Adjectives. They are used absolutely, in substitution to persons or things, preceded by a definite article, cf.:

A minha casa grande, mas a tua pequena. My house is large, but yours is small.

Demonstrative Pronouns (Pronomes Demonstrativos)

Variable Singular Masculine este this esse this / that aquele that o mesmo himself o outro the other o this tal such Plural Masculine estes esses aqueles os mesmos os outros os tais

Feminine esta essa aquela a mesma a outra a

Feminine estas essas aquelas as mesmas as outras as

Contracted Forms (Formas Combinadas)

Pronomes Demonstrativos este(s) esta(s) deste(s) desta(s) neste(s) nesta(s) --esse(s) desse(s) nesse(s) -essa(s) dessa(s) nessa(s) -aquele(s) daquele(s) naquele(s) quele(s) aquela(s) daquela(s) naquela(s) quela(s)

de em a

i d n -

Relative Pronouns (Pronomes Relativos)

Variable Singular Masculine o qual who quanto as much as as many as Plural Masculine os quais quantos

Feminine a qual quanta

Feminine as quais quantas

Interrogative Pronouns (Pronomes Interrogativos)

Variable Singular Masculine quanto how much / many? qual what? Plural Masculine quantos quais

Feminine quanta

Feminine quantas

Indefinite Pronouns (Pronomes Indefinidos)

Variable Singular Masculine algum somebody nenhum nobody todo everybody muito many pouco few vrio various tanto as much outro other quanto as much qualquer whatever Plural Masculine alguns nenhuns todos muitos poucos vrios tantos outros quantos quaisquer

Feminine alguma nenhuma toda muita pouca vria tanta outra quanta

Feminine algumas nenhumas todas muitas poucas vrias tantas outras quantas

Personal Pronouns
Os pronomes mais conhecidos so os pronomes pessoais, que em ingls chamamos de Personal Pronouns. Eles so I (eu), you (voc), he (ele), she (ela), it (ele/ela/isto), we (ns) e they (eles). Eles so usados no lugar dos nomes (substantivos) e como sujeito de uma sentena. Vejamos alguns exemplos. My name is Joo I am a teacher. Meu nome Joo. Eu sou professor. This is my father. He is a teacher. Este meu pai. Ele professor. This is my mother. She is a lawyer. Esta minha me. Ela advogada. I have a blog. It is about English. Eu tenho um blog. (meu blog) sobre ingls. I have a brother and a sister. They are Jorge and Mary. Eu tenho um irmo e uma irm. Eles so Jorge e Mary. You are a student. Voc um estudante. My family and I live in a big city. We have an apartment. Eu e minha famlia vivemos em uma cidade grande. Ns temos um apartamento. Conhecer os pronomes pessoais de suma importncia. Muitos estudantes ainda confundem hecom she ou we com they. preciso saber todos os pronomes naturalmente, na ponta da lngua! Outro ponto importante o pronome it, que significa ela ou ela quando usado para se referir a objetos e animais, sendo muitas vezes traduzido como isto. Esse pronome causa muita confuso porque no existe em portugus, onde temos somente ele e ela. Futuramente aprenderemos mais sobre o pronome it.