Personal Pronouns

Pronouns. Pronouns are a special class of noun that name the concept or experience of grammatical person (hence they are said to be personal pronouns).

The pronoun “I” names the experience or reality of being a first person singular – the subjective center of experience.

The pronoun “you” names the person (or sometimes thing) being addressed by the first person.

Pronouns of the third person refers to all other persons apart from the first and second persons – “he”, “she”, “they”.

Note that in English the pronouns have both singular and plural forms, and that they have grammatical case – i.e., they have distinct forms that are used to express grammatical subject (nominative) and object (objective), as well as possessive forms (which serve as adjectives):

First Person Second Person Third Person

singular

nominative I you he, she, it

possessive my / mine your / yours his, her / hers, its

objective me you him, her, it

plural

nominative we you they

possessive our / ours your / yours their / theirs

objective us you them

In older English, second person singular forms were (nom.) thou, (poss.) thine, (obj.) thee.