A practical english grammar - Vyssaja skola 1978
Pronouns
Sound symbols
Pronouns are words that replace nouns and that can function in most of the ways that nouns can. They do not have fixed referents. Instead, their meaning is determined by the context in which they are used, according to the rules that will be stated below.
Pronouns in English have person, number, and case. In addition, the third person singular pronouns also have gender. They are the only words in the language with such elaborate inflection. They are listed in Table 2-1.
Table 2-1: Pronouns
1) These words are not the only ones in English, of course, that can replace nouns. See also Substitute Nouns (Chapter 13).
2) First person singular refers to the speaker; the plural refers to a group that includes the speaker and may or may not include the person addressed.
3) Second person refers to the person addressed, or to the group that contains the person (or persons) addressed. Singular and plural forms are identical.
4) In the third person singular, masculine pronouns refer to male beings (man), feminine pronouns to female beings (woman), and neuter pronouns to inanimate objects or to living beings (baby, cat) whose sex is irrelevant or immaterial in the context. In the plural, one set of pronouns is used for all genders.
5) The subjective case is used as the subject of a verb and, in elegant speech, as the complement after be (It is I); the objective case is used as the object of a verb or a preposition, in informal speech as complement after be, or when the pronoun stands alone. (Who did that?—Me.) The objective case is used also as the subject of non-finite verbs. (Me fly? I want him to do it.)
6) The prenominal form is the one used before nouns (my hat); the independent form is used alone (It is mine). Another term frequently used to refer to the prenominal form is 1st possessive; the independent form is then called 2nd possessive.