PARTS OF SPEECH: Pronouns.

 There are eight parts of speech in English and almost in any language such as nouns, verbs, pronouns, prepositions, adjectives, interjections, conjunctions and adverbs. 

Nouns are the words which refer to abstract or concrete things, concepts, animals, places or persons. They form the basic vocabulary in any language and they are essential in any language. At the beginning of humanity the nouns were written down by means of basic pictures which depicted the meaning of the noun in a drawing coloured or not as we can see in hyeroglyphes, then humans created more basic signs to mean the words they described the world around them, thus we have Sumerian, Celtic or Phoenician alphabets from which the latter Greek and Latin  alphabets derived.

 Nouns are usually divided in English in proper because they refer to a specific person, animal or thing such as a river, mountain, country, town, etc. or common nouns to name common objects, animals or people such as coat, tree, lion, girl, man, etc. 

Besides nouns can refer to abstract or concrete concepts such as love, hate, faith, anguish, pity or chair, cup, scissors, etc. respectively. Nouns in English can be singular or plural which are formed usually adding -s or -es or in irregular nouns in -ves or -en (such as life: lives, wolf: wolves, leaf: leaves, etc. or child: children or ox: oxen, brother: brethren).

Nouns in English usually have no gender except when we change the word to another usually by means of affixation: man= woman, boy= girl, cow= bull, wolf= she-wolf, father: mother, actor= actress, prince: princess, uncle= aunt.

Nowadays the neuter gender words are much in use in professions and roles in order to renew the language to make it more inclusive. For example, mankind: humankind, waiter/ waitress: server, spokesperson, police officer, spouse, parent, person, child, horse.

Nevertheless, in English for historical reasons the ships, countries and churches are usually referred in the feminine form as she, though it is not gender inclusive and politically correct.

Pronouns: these are words which replace the person or people in relationship with the speaker either in singular or plural. The most common are the following below:

Personal pronouns subject which are at the beginning of any sentence or clause and they refer to the speaker (I= yo) and the rest of the people in relationship. They mean the people or animals which are the subject and doer of the sentence and usually are the agent of the action of the verb or the recipient of the action of the object agent in passive sentences.

I (yo) it appears always in capital letter regardless of the place in the sentence.

you (tú, usted) ------------------------------------------you (vosotros/ as, ustedes)

he (él ), she (ella), it (ello) ……………………………………..they (ellos /as)

we (nosotros /nosotras) is the plural of I and it is not written in capital letter.

Personal pronouns object:

They also refer to the speaker or the person or animals in the relationship with the speaker though they are at the end of the sentence because they receive the action of the verb, whereas the personal pronouns subject answer who did the action of the main verb, the personal pronouns object answer whom (a quién) is directed the action of the main verb (se dirige la acción del verbo principal).

Singular:                                                           Plural:

1st person: me (a mí)            -----------------------------------  us  ( a nosotros/ as)

2nd person: you ( a ti)           ………………………………………..you ( a vosotros /as)

3rd person: him (a él) / her ( a ella) / it ( a ello)………………….them ( a ellos/as)

Examples: We gave her a book. He looked at us and phoned them. I saw him. 

 

Reflexive pronouns

They are pronouns which refer to the same person that is they reflect the subject in the object, so both the subject and the object in the sentence or the action of the verb are the same. They can finish in singular in the -affix “-self” and in plural in the affix “-selves”.

                                                Singular:                                                   Plural:

1st person:      myself  (yo mismo/a)          ourselves (nosotros/as mismos/as)

2nd person:    yourself  (tú mismo/a)       yourselves (vosotros/as mismos/as)     

3rd  person:   himself/ herself /itself      (él/ ella/ ello mismo/a)

                                                                   yourselves (vosotros/as mismos/as)