Brighter Grammar 1 - Margaret Macaulay 1987

Lesson Thirteen. Pronouns

Look at this story:

John Brown said that John Brown was hungry. Mary Brown said that Mary Brown was hungry, too. When their mother heard that John and Mary were hungry, their mother gave John and Mary a piece of cake each. John and Mary thanked their mother for the piece of cake and John and Mary ate the piece of cake. Then John said, ’John thanks his mother. John isn’t hungry now/ and Mary said, 'Mary thanks her mother. Mary isn’t hungry now.’ Their mother said, ’Did John and Mary enjoy the cake?" and John and Mary said together, ’John and Mary enjoyed the cake very much.’

It sounds funny, doesn’t it? I’m sure you can see why. It’s because we keep repeating the nouns John and Mary and mother and piece of cake. Now let’s try again, and this time, instead of always using these nouns, we will use other words that stand for them. We’ll mark all the words that we use instead of the nouns.

John Brown said that he was hungry. Mary Brown said that she was hungry, too. When their mother heard that they were hungry, she gave them a piece of cake each. They thanked her for it and they ate it. Then John said, ’(I) Thank you. I’m not hungry now,’ and Mary said, ’(I) Thank you. I’m not hungry now/ Their mother said, ’Did you enjoy it?’ And they said together, ’We enjoyed it very much.’

That sounds better, doesn’t it? We have used pronouns, words that we use instead of the nouns. The pronouns in that story are the words I, you, he, she, we, they, them, her, him, it.

Words that stand instead of nouns are called pronouns.

Exercise

Pick out the pronouns in the following.

1 John is a boy. He is at home.

2 Mary is a girl. She is in the class.

3 They are brother and sister.

4 We know them very well.

5 They stayed with us last year.

6 John is a clever boy. I like him.

7 Mary is our friend. She is twelve years old. We like her.

8 They have a bicycle. It is yellow.

9 They have asked me to visit them next year.

10 They live in Kingston. It is a big city.

11 Do you like these flowers? They are out of the garden.

12 I read that book. It is very interesting.

13 Show me how to do this exercise.

14 Don’t you know how to do it?

15 I don’t understand how to do it.