Types of Pronouns and Questions

I. Kinds of Pronouns and the Sentences

A pronoun is a word that replaces a noun in a sentence. Pronouns are used so that our language is not cumbersome with the same nouns being repeated over and over in a paragraph. Some examples of pronouns include I, me, mine, myself, she, her, hers,herself, we, us, ours and ourselves. You may have noticed that they tend to come in sets of four, all referring to the same person, group or thing.

• He, him, his and himself, for example, all refer to a male person or something belonging to him
• They, them, theirs and themselves all refer to a group or something belonging to a group, and so on.

The truth is that there are many different types of pronouns, each serving a different purpose in a sentence.

1. Personal Pronouns

Personal pronouns can be the subject of a clause or sentence. They are: I, he, she, it, they, we, and you. Example: “They went to the store.”

Personal pronouns can also be objective, where they are the object of a verb, preposition, or infinitive phrase. They are: me, her, him, it, you, them, and us. Example: “David gave the gift to her.”

Possession can be shown by personal pronouns, like: mine, his, hers, ours, yours, its,and theirs. Example: “Is this mine or yours?”

2. Demonstrative Pronouns

This class of pronouns direct the reader’s attention to an implied noun:

“I’m not going to eat this.”

“That was quite an experience!”

“What are these?”

“I’ve never seen those before.”

“Such is my understanding of the situation.”

These sentences closely resemble the type in which the same words appear as adjectives — for example, “I’m not going to eat this food” — but in such case, they have a different identity: When they modify nouns, these words are called determiners.

3. Indefinite Pronouns

Not to be confused with indefinite relative pronouns, described below, these are pronouns that act as nouns:

“All were present at the meeting.”

“Each was guilty in his or her own way.”

“One has to keep up appearances.”

“Good fortune comes to some.”

“None of them showed up.”

“Is anybody interested?”

“Somebody is going to pay for this.”

“Have you sent invitations to everybody?”

There are many more indefinite pronouns than these: any, fewer, several, most, and other related words; these also function as determiners (adjectives):

“I recognized several people at the party.”

4. Intensive Pronouns

Intensive pronouns are simply personal pronouns with -self or -selves attached, such as in the following sentences:

“I myself don’t have an opinion.”

“She would have said so herself, but he beat her to it.”

Intensive pronouns, like the otherwise identical-looking reflexive pronouns (below), are not essential to the sentence; omit the highlighted word in each of these examples, and the sentences still make sense without the intensive pronoun.

5. Interrogative Pronouns

These pronouns introduce interrogative sentences:

“Who are you?”

“What is the meaning of life?”

“Which way should I go?”

Like some other types of pronouns, these can serve as determiners (sometimes called, in this role, interrogative adjectives).

Sentences in which interrogative pronouns appear don’t always end with question marks:

“I know who you are.”

“She told you what the meaning of life is.”

“They know which way to go.”

6. Reciprocal Pronouns

These pronouns combine ideas, hence the name:

“Have you met each other before?”

“We shared our thoughts with one another.”

The distinction in use is whether you refer to two people (“each other”) or to more than two (“one another”).

7. Reflexive Pronouns

These pronouns have the same form as intensive pronouns but differ in that they refer reflexively to the antecedent (a corresponding noun the pronoun refers to):

“I bought myself a new car.” (Myself is reflexive of I.)

“Have you looked at yourself in the mirror lately? (Yourself is reflexive of you.)

They are also essential to the sentence; if you omitted the highlighted word in each of these examples, the sentences would be incomplete.

The erroneous use of reflexive pronouns in sentences such as “Jane and myself were there when it happened” (instead of “Jane and I were there when it happened”) is called an untriggered reflexive, because there was no antecedent to trigger the pronoun. (“Jane and I” itself is the subject. This subject is the antecedent of we in “Jane and I were there when it happened, but we didn’t see anything,” but there’s no need for a reflexive pronoun in that sentence.)

8. Relative Pronouns

These are the type of pronouns that, as the name implies, relate words to other pronouns or to nouns:

“Who were you talking to?”

“I’ll find out which one is correct.”

“The vase that was on the table is missing.”

A subgroup of relative pronouns, the indefinite relative pronouns, lack an antecedent:

“What were you saying?”

“Whoever said that is asking for trouble.”

“I’ll do whatever I please.”

9. Possessive Pronouns vs. Possessive Determiners

"The possessive pronouns (mine, yours, his, etc.) are like possessive determiners, except that they constitute a whole noun phrase. 

1. The house will be hers you see when they are properly divorced.

2. Writers have produced extraordinary work in conditions more oppressive than mine.

Possessive pronouns are typically used when the head noun can be found in the preceding context; thus in 1, hers means 'her house,' and in 2, mine means ' my conditions.' Here the possessive pronoun is parallel to the elliptic use of the genitive.

II. Three Types of Questions and the Example

There are three basic question types:

• Yes/No: the answer is "yes or no"
• Question-word: the answer is "information"
• Choice: the answer is "in the question"

1. Yes/No questions
Sometimes the only answer that we need is yes or no. Look at these examples:

auxiliary verb	subject	not	main verb		answer: yes or no
Do	you		want	dinner?	Yes, I do.
Can	you		drive?		No, I can't.
Has	she	not	finished	her work?	Yes, she has.
Did	they		go	home?	No, they didn't.

Exception! Main verb be in Present Simple and Past Simple:

main verb be	subject
Is	Anne	French?
Was	Ram	at home?

2. Question-word questions

Sometimes we want more than yes or no for an answer. When asking for information, we usually place a question-word at the beginning of the sentence. The question-word indicates the information that we want, for example: where (place), when (time), why (reason), who (person). Look at these examples:

question word	auxiliary verb	not	subject	main verb		answer: information
Where	do		you	live?		In Paris.
When	will		we	have	lunch?	At 1pm.
Why	has	n't	Tara	done	it?	Because she can't.
Who(m)	did		she	meet?		She met Ram.
Who*	has			run	out?	Ati has run out.
Who**				ran	out?	Ati ran out.

*When the question-word is who, it acts as the subject.
**In Present Simple and Past Simple tenses, there is no auxilary verb withwho.

Exception. Main verb be in Present Simple and Past Simple:

question word	main verb be	subject
Where	is	Bombay?
How	was	she?

3. Choice questions

Sometimes we give our listener a choice. We ask them to choose between two possible answers. So their answer is (usually) already in the question. Look at these examples:

auxiliary verb	subject	main verb		or		answer: in question
Do	you	want	tea	or	coffee?	Coffee, please.
Will	we	meet	John	or	James?	John.

Exception. Main verb be in Present Simple and Past Simple:

main verb be	subject		OR
Is	your car	white	or	black?
Were	they	$15	or	$50?

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