English Grammar for the Utterly Confused - Laurie Rozakis 2003

Overview of Pronoun Case
Chapter 2. Using Pronouns Correctly
Part 1 Welcome to grammarland

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You’ll recall from Chapter 1 that a pronoun is a word used in place of a noun or another pronoun. A pronoun gets its meaning from the noun it replaces, called the antecedent.

Case refers to the form of a noun or pronoun that shows how it is used in a sentence.

Overview of Pronoun Case

Only two parts of speech, nouns and pronouns, have case. This means that they change form depending on how they are used in a sentence. English has three cases: nominative, objective, and possessive.

• In the nominative case, the pronoun is used as a subject.

I threw the ball.

• In the objective case, the pronoun is used as an object.

Give the ball to me.

• In the possessive case, the pronoun is used to show ownership.

The ball is mine.

The following chart shows the three cases of personal pronouns:

To avoid errors in personal pronoun use, you must understand how to use each case. The rules are explained below. Relax: They’re actually not difficult at all!