Table of Personal Pronouns

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Now let’s put it all together. The first table below shows singular personal pronouns; the second, plural personal pronouns.

 

Click page 2 below. Check Out the Possessive Forms

As you study the tables above, a question should form in your mind. Why does the possessive case have two forms? What’s this our-ours, my-mine bit?

A pronoun in the possessive case can appear in two different ways in a sentence. Like the possessive noun, it can appear right before the word it modifies. Thus:

Natalie’s house is on the corner.

Here the possessive noun Natalie’s stands in the attributive position.

We can say the same thing by using the third-person, possessive, feminine pronoun like this:

Her house is on the corner.

Here the possessive pronoun her also stands in the attributive position.

But we might have stated our sentence this way:

The house on the corner is Natalie’s.

Here the possessive noun stands in the predicative position; it is linked to the word it modifies (house) by a linking verb (is).

Recognizing this little twist, the Pronoun Committee came up with a predicative form of the possessive pronoun enabling us to say the same thing:

The house on the corner is hers.

Thus:

This is my house. This house is mine. This is our office. This office is ours. This is your car. This car is yours.

Recall the Noun Functions

In the above sentences, the words mine, ours, and yours are really acting like nouns, aren't they? They serve as predicate nominatives. In fact, the words could serve as subjects of sentences, could they not?

Mine is faster than yours. Hers runs better than mine.

Here, the words mine and hers act as the subjects of the respective sentences. And what word acts as a subject? Right. The noun.

So these strange possessive forms really act in subjective ways. Technically, they are "possessive case," but they do things accomplished by subjective-case pronouns: subjects of sentences and predicate nominatives.

And if you think about it, these possessive-case personal pronouns would act like possessive pronouns only about 150 years ago:

"Mine eyes have seen the glory of the coming of the Lord."

What a wonderful language Miss Hamrick, Amber, and Igor devised.

 

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