English grammar - Roger Berry 2012

B2.2 Personal pronouns
B2 Pronouns
Section B Development

The most important class of pronouns are the personal pronouns, both because they are the most common and because they can vary in a number of ways, some of which are unique in English’ They vary

□ for person (first, second and third), e.g. I, you, he

□ for number (singular and plural), e.g. I vs we

□ for case (subjective and objective), e.g. I vs me

□ for gender, e.g. he, she, it

These forms are explained below. We can organise this variation into a table showing how the various forms are related to each other; this is called the ’personal pronoun paradigm’:

Table B2.2.1 The personal pronoun paradigm

(The slashes separate the subjective and objective forms (see below), the commas the different genders.)