Do you know what personal pronouns are? This article will provide you with all of the information you need on personal pronouns, including the definition, usage, example sentences, and more!

What is a personal pronoun?

According to Your Dictionary, personal pronouns take the place of specific nouns naming people, places, ideas and things. These include I, he, him, her, it, me, she, them, they, us, we, and you in English grammar. The first personal singular pronouns are I and me. The first person plural pronouns are we and us. The second person singular pronoun is you. The second person plural pronoun is you. The third person singular pronouns are she, her, he, him, it, they, and them. The third person plural pronouns are they and them. Some of these pronouns are gender neutral, while others are designated for male and female genders. These subject and object pronouns are used frequently.

Many different languages also contain words that mean personal pronouns. You may notice that some of these translations of personal pronouns look and sound similar to one another. These are called cognates, which are words and phrases in different languages that likely have the same root or language of origin, causing them to sound the same. The below list of translations of personal pronouns is provided by Word Sense.

Esperanto: persona pronomo‎

French: pronom personnel‎ (masc.)

Korean: 인칭대명사‎ (inching-daemyeongsa)

Swedish: personligt pronomen‎ (neut.)

Nogai: оьзлик авыс‎

Polish: zaimek osobowy‎ (m-in)

Armenian: անձնական դերանուն‎

Novial: personal pronomine‎

Romanian: pronume personal‎ (neut.)

Turkish: kişi zamiri‎

Estonian: isikuline asesõna‎

Icelandic: persónufornafn‎ (neut.)

Indonesian: kata ganti orang‎

Belarusian: асабовы займеннік‎

Portuguese: pronome pessoal‎ (masc.)

Albanian: përemër vetor‎ (masc.)

Slovene: osebni zaimek‎ (masc.)

Italian: pronome personale‎ (masc.)

Russian: ли́чное местоиме́ние‎ (neut.)

Ukrainian: особистий займенник‎

Finnish: persoonapronomini‎

Norwegian: personligt pronomen‎ (neut.)

Tagalog: panghalip panao‎

Hungarian: személyes névmás‎

Dutch: persoonlijk voornaamwoord‎ (neut.)

Czech: osobní zájmeno‎ (neut.)

Japanese: 人称代名詞‎ (にんしょうだいめいし, ninshō-daimeishi)

Lithuanian: asmeninis įvardis‎ (masc.)

Mandarin: 人稱代詞‎, 人称代词‎ (rénchēng dàicí)

Danish: personligt pronomen‎ (neut.)

German: Personalpronomen‎ (neut.)

Macedonian: лична заменка‎

Thai: บุรุษสรรพนาม‎

Spanish: pronombre personal‎ (masc.)

Interlingua: pronomine personal‎

What are examples of personal pronouns?

Take a look at the below examples of personal pronouns from Thought Co. and see if you can recognize the personal pronoun in the first example or second example.

“She had driven her father into town, stopping along the way as he pointed out sights, showed her where he used to play as a child, told her stories he hadn’t thought about for years. They went to the museum, where he showed Bee her ancestors . . ..” (Jane Green, The Beach House. Viking Penguin, 2008)

“[M]ake the board of directors of British Telecom go out and personally track down every last red phone box that they sold off to be used as shower stalls and garden sheds in far-flung corners of the globe, make them put them all back, and then sack them–no, kill them. Then truly will London be glorious again.” (Bill Bryson, Notes From a Small Island. Doubleday, 1995)

“Always forgive your enemies; nothing annoys them so much.” (Oscar Wilde)

“Among naturalists, when a bird is seen well beyond its normal range, it is called an accidental.” (E.L. Doctorow, The Waterworks. Macmillan, 1994)

“I got the two carbons from a drawer and took them to her. As she did each one I took it and gave the signature a look.” (Rex Stout, A Right to Die. Viking Press, 1964)

“Daddy Bailey invited me to spend the summer with him in southern California, and I was jumpy with excitement.” (Maya Angelou, I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings. Random House, 1969)

“They told me you had been to her, And mentioned me to him: She gave me a good character, But said I could not swim. He sent them word I had not gone (We know it to be true): If she should push the matter on, What would become of you?” (from a letter read by the White Rabbit in Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland by Lewis Carroll, 1865)

“From the moment I picked up your book until I laid it down, I was convulsed with laughter. Someday I intend reading it.” (Groucho Marx)

What are other literary techniques and devices?

There are many different literary and grammatical techniques and devices that you might see when you are reading prose or poetry. It is important to recognize these terms because they are always used for some purpose. Knowing these devices can help readers understand the author’s deeper meaning and why they are using such a device. Take a look at the below list of grammatical devices from OED and see how many you know! Then try researching ones that are unfamiliar to you.

positive

head

attributive

base form

element

noun phrase

agent noun

prefix

verb (v.)

sentence adverb |sentence adverbial

intensifier

instrumental

filler

parenthetical | parenthetically

present participle

zero

auxiliary verb | auxiliary

subordinate clause

present tense

genitive

past tense

impersonal (impers.)

noun (n.)

common noun

that-clause

gender

causative

dual

masculine

similative

mood

indirect question

verbal noun

clause

special use

declarative

cognate object

prepositional object

construed (const., constr.)

stem

possessive pronoun

combination

conjunction (conj.)

finite

second person

predicative

active

construction

conditional

progressive

objective

indirect speech

bare infinitive

periphrasis | periphrastic

appositive

concrete

to-infinitive

copular verb | copula

phrase (phr.)

premodify | premodifier

non-finite

postmodify | postmodifier

modify | modifier

superlative

indicative

pro-form

determiner

nominal relative | nominal relative clause

main clause

combining form (comb. form)

subjective

apodosis and protasis

dative

vocative

collective noun

prepositional phrase

plural

passive

apposition

nominative

adjective

subjunctive

complement

participial adjective

abstract

anaphoric

object | direct object | indirect object

collocation | collocate

tense

morpheme

case

mass noun

definite article

demonstrative

reflexive

possessive adjective

person

indirect passive

cataphoric

possessive pronouns | proper name

comparative

article

singular

suffix

past participle

anticipatory

adverb (adv.)

complementary

relative

agree | agreement

indirect object

preposition (prep.)

transitive

participle | past participle | present participle

feminine

infinitive

locative

part of speech

unmarked genitive

protasis

number

neuter

non-referential

simple

absolute (absol.)

antecedent

direct speech

passive infinitive

intransitive

pleonasm | pleonastic

possessive

count noun

modal verb | modal auxiliary verb | modal auxiliary

inflection | inflected | inflectional

double object

quasi-

imperative (imper.)

indefinite

compound | compounding

first person

pronoun (pron.)

interrogative

ellipsis | elliptical

perfect

direct object

third-person

main verb

phrasal verb

adverbial | adverbially

optative

interjection

accusative

personal pronoun

prepositional passive

subject

direct question

parasynthetic

Overall, the term personal pronouns refer to a pronoun that can replace a noun referring to a person, place, idea or thing. These come in first-person pronoun, second-person pronoun and third-person pronoun.

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