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}} Personal pronouns are Pronoun s that refer to Objects Of A Sentence , usually (but not always), people or animals. They are often used as substitutes for proper or common Nouns . CORRECT GRAMMATICAL USAGE In English, it is usual to use personal pronouns when the context is already understood, or could easily be understood by reading the sentences that follow. For example, one does not normally use the word "he" to refer to somebody if the person reading or hearing the sentence does not know to whom you are referring. In addition, personal pronouns must correspond to the correct Gender and number of people or objects being described. Using the word "it" in English to refer to a person, for example, is usually considered extremely derogatory. It is generally not accepted to use a singular version of a pronoun for a plural noun, and vice versa. In general, pronouns are used often, since too little of their usage can make a sentence very difficult to read. In French , pronouns include tu, vous, ils, elles, lui, toi, moi, etc. There are different pronouns used for different genders and numbers of people, and unlike English where "them" and "they" are used for every object whether it is masculine or feminine, in French the plural forms vary according to gender. In addition, in French, different pronouns are used for Indirect Object s of a sentence than Direct Object s. ENGLISH PERSONAL PRONOUNS, POSSESSIVE PRONOUNS AND ADJECTIVES The English personal pronouns including nonstandard ones and related pronouns and adjectives are shown below. Reflexive Pronoun s are used as the Object of a sentence when the Subject and object match. Possessive Pronoun s and Possessive Adjective s are used to show ownership. # The forms of '' We '' are also sometimes used with a singular sense. When this is the case, they take a plural Verb , but ''ourselves'' is often changed to ''ourself''. # The only common distinction between singular and plural ''you'' is in the reflexive and emphatic forms. # In Scotland, ''yous'' is often used for the second person plural (particularly in the Central Belt area). However, in some parts of the country, ''ye'' is used for the plural ''you''. In older times and in some other places today, ''ye'' is the nominative case and ''you'' is the accusative case. Some English Dialect s generalised ''ye'', while Standard English generalised ''you''. Some dialects use ''ye'' as a clipped or Clitic form of ''you''. # The forms of ''they'' are also sometimes used with grammatically or semantically singular Antecedent s, though it is a matter of some dispute whether and when such usage is acceptable; see Singular They . When this is the case, they take a plural verb, but ''themselves'' with a singular sense is often changed to ''themself''. English regional dialects sometimes use variant pronouns. See also a . DISTINCTIONS MADE IN PRONOUNS Pronouns usually show the basic distinctions of Person and Number (the most common system distinguishing between first, second and third person, and singular and plural number), but they may also feature other categories such as Case ( Nominative ''we'' vs. Objective ''us'' in English), Gender (masculine ''he'' vs. feminine ''she'' in English), and Animacy or humanness (human ''who'' vs. nonhuman ''what'' in English). These can of course vary greatly. The English dialect spoken in Dorset uses ''ee'' for animates and ''er'' for inanimates. Some languages distinguish Inclusive and Exclusive first-person pronouns, letting a listener know whether the person addressed is or is not included in "we". For example, Tok Pisin has seven first-person pronouns according to number (singular, dual, trial, plural) and inclusiveness/exclusiveness, such as ''mitripela'' (they two and I) and ''yumitripela'' (you two and I). Slavic Languages have two different third-person genitive pronouns (one non-reflexive, one Reflexive ). For example (in Serbian ): Ana je dala Mariji njenu knjigu. Ana je dala Mariji svoju knjigu. The pronoun may encode politeness and formality. Many languages have different pronouns for informal use or use among friends, and for formal use or use about/towards superiors, especially in the second person. A common pattern in European languages is the so-called T-V Distinction (named after the use of pronouns beginning in ''t-'' and ''v-'' in Romance Language s, as in French ''tu'' and ''vous''). It is very common for pronouns to show more grammatical distinctions than nouns. The Romance Language s have lost the Latin grammatical case for nouns, but preserve the distinction in the pronouns. The same holds for English with respect to its Germanic ancestor. It is also not uncommon for languages not to have third-person pronouns. In those cases the usual way to refer to third persons is by using Demonstrative s or full noun phrases. Latin made do without third-person pronouns, replacing them by demonstratives (which are in fact the source of personal pronouns in all Romance languages). Some languages lack the grammatical category ''pronoun'' entirely. Both Japanese and Korean are such languages. In these languages, instead of pronouns, there is a small set of nouns that reference the discourse participants (as pronouns do in other languages). Most often, these referential nouns are not used, and proper personal names, some Deictics and Title s are used instead. Usually, once the subject is understood, no explicit reference is made at all. In Japanese sentences, subjects are not obligatory, so the speaker chooses which word to use depending on the rank, job, age, gender, etc. of the speaker and the addressee. For instance, in formal situations, adults usually refer to themselves as ''watashi'' or the even more polite ''watakushi'', while young men may use the student-like ''boku'' and police officers may use ''honkan'' ("this officer"). In informal situations, women may use the colloquial ''atashi'', and men may use the rougher ''ore''. PRO-DROP LANGUAGES In some languages, a pronoun is required whenever a noun or noun phrase needs to be referenced, and sometimes even when no such antecedent exists (cf English ''it rains''). In many other languages, however, pronouns can be omitted when unnecessary or when context makes it clear who or what is being talked about. Such languages are called Pro-drop Language s. In some cases the information about the antecedent is preserved in the Verb (through person/number Inflection ). IT IS ME In some languages, a personal pronoun has a form called a disjunctive pronoun, which is used when it stands on its own, or with only a Copula , such as in answering to the question "Who wrote this page?" English pronouns used in this way have caused some dispute. The natural answer for most English speakers in this context would be "me" (or "it's me"), parallel to "moi" (or "c'est moi") in French. Some grammarians have argued and persuaded some educators that the correct answer should be "I" or "it is I" because the full sentence would be "It is I who wrote this page." However, since English has lost noun inflection and relies on word order, using the accusative ''me'' after the verb ''be'' like other verbs seems very natural to modern speakers. The phrase "it is I" historically came from the Middle English "it am I" and the change from ''am'' to ''is'' was also a step to the fixed word order of SVO . PERSONAL PRONOUNS OF OTHER LANGUAGES
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