A. Circle the appropriate pronoun for each sentence.

1. Can you please hand me the bouquet of flowers over

     there? ( That, This ) is mine.

2. Ginny and Marra love gardening. ( She, They ) grow

       different kinds of herbs in their garden.

3. ( What, Who ) is your favorite flower?

4. ( I, You ) am fond of carnations.

5. Vicky likes roses because ( it, they ) smell good.

What are pronouns? When do we use them?

 Read the following sentences aloud:

      Gio loves mangoes. Gio especially loves the mangoes that come from Guimaras. Whenever it is summertime, Gio’s grandmother brings those sweet mangoes for Gio. That makes Gio very happy.

   Did you notice anything odd about these sentences? How many times did the name Gio appear? Five times! Do you know how we can improve these

sentences? How can we make them better?

  Reading the sentences does not sound too pleasant to the ears, right? There’s a way to remedy that. We can use pronouns.

               Pronouns are words that replace nouns.

 You use pronouns to make sentences sound less repetitive.

  Now read these sentences:

    Gio loves mangoes. He especially loves the mangoes that come from Guimaras. Whenever it is summertime, his

grandmother brings those sweet mangoes for him. That makes him very happy.

 Doesn’t that sound much better? What did we do? We replaced Gio with he, his, and him. These words are all examples of pronouns.

There are different kinds of pronouns:

 A. Personal

We use them depending on:

• numbers (how many people are talking)

• person (who is talking)

• gender (if the person is male or female)

• case (how the pronoun is used in a sentence)

The table below shows the different personal pronouns.

See Table.

Here are some examples on how pronouns are used in sentences:

         Gio has some fruits for you. (object)

         Does Gio know me? (object)

  NOTE: It is nothing to worry about. (subject)

B. Interrogative

These pronouns are for asking questions. They replace the person or thing that we do not know.

 See Table.

Here are some examples on how they are used in sentences: Who likes eating vegetables?

              For whom are these strawberries?

              Which is your dish?

              I have my lunchbox. Whose did you find? 

                 (Who owns the lunchbox you found?)

C. Indefinite

Indefinite pronouns do not refer to a specific person, place, or thing. 

For example, you want to say that a person gave you a basket of fruits, but you do not know who it was. 

You may think of using the personal pronoun he or she, but that would be inappropriate since you do not specifically know who that person was. 

So, instead of using the personal pronoun he or she, you can use the indefinite pronoun somebody.

   Example: 

       Somebody gave me a basket of fruits, but there was no

             card attached.

   Here is a table of indefinite pronouns and whether they are used in singular or plural forms.

See Table.

Here are some sentences using indefinite pronouns:

      Someone brought strawberries from Baguio.

      Several are beginning to eat vegetables. 

      Which dessert would you like to eat?

      Any will do for me.

  D. Demonstrative

There are only four demonstrative pronouns.

 E. Possessive

These pronouns show ownership. They are: mine, yours, his, hers, ours, theirs

Read these sentences:

          The handkerchief that you found is mine.

           Is this your school? 

           Ours is just three streets away.

An important point to remember when using pronouns is to make sure you are using the appropriate pronoun. The pronoun you use should match the gender and the number of the noun you are replacing. This will make sure that what you are communicating is clear and precise.