Contributor: Suzanne Riordan. Lesson ID: 13944
In team sports, it's us against them. In individual sports, it's me against you. Pronouns help us identify who's playing, who threw the ball to whom, and who won the game.
Let Schoolhouse Rock school you on pronouns!
Watch Schoolhouse Rock Rufus Xavier Sarsaparilla (Pronouns) from dawemmy:
Pronouns make our lives easier!
In this lesson, you will take a look at three ways that pronouns are used in sentences.
First, do a quick review of subjects and objects because you're going to learn how pronouns can be both subjects and objects of a sentence.
Subjects and Objects
Let's look to the sport of golf for some examples.
Let's say our friend, Dan, is a professional golfer.
Dan picks up his golf club.
In this sentence, Dan is the subject because he's the one doing the action. The club is the object because it's the thing to which the action is done (he picks it up).
Dan swings the club and hits the ball.
Again, Dan is the subject. In this sentence, however, he does two different actions to two different objects. He both swings and hits.
He swings the club.
He hits the ball.
So both club and ball are the objects.
Whenever you're asked to find subjects, ask yourself:
Whenever you're asked to find objects, ask yourself:
Now, onto the pronouns!
Subjective Pronouns
You can probably guess that subjective pronouns are the pronouns that are the subject of the sentence.
Let's say that Dan has a brother named Stan, who is into the sport of auto racing.
Stan drives a Formula One race car.
Of course, Stan is the subject of this sentence.
He drives a black car with red and white highlights.
When we replace Stan with the pronoun He, He becomes the subject, also called the subjective pronoun.
The subjective pronouns are:
Objective Pronouns
Since subjective pronouns are the subject of a sentence, you can probably guess what objective pronouns are!
Yes, they are the objects of the sentence.
Our friend Sasha plays basketball.
The ball. Ball is the object.
It, meaning the basketball. So it is the objective pronoun.
The objective pronouns are:
Some more examples:
Possessives
Sasha's sister, Natasha, plays tennis.
She is the sister of Sasha. Sasha's is a possessive noun.
Her sister practices tennis every day.
Here, we've replaced Sasha's with her, so we know that her is a possessive pronoun.
We can replace possessive nouns with possessive pronouns:
Dan's golf club... | ⇒ | His golf club... | |
Stan's race car... | ⇒ | His race car... | |
Stan and Dan's father... | ⇒ | Their father... |
The possessive pronouns are:
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