pronoun

Pronouns are the stunt doubles of the English language. They keep communication going with or without the nouns. Pronouns come in to keep nouns from getting repetitive or when nouns are not clearly known. They do more work than you think, so read on to learn about them.

Subject and object pronouns are used in everyday language. However, it can be tricky to remember which is which. The subject always takes action. The object is part of the activity, but it does not do any acting. Here is an example:

Shelby likes talking to Marvin.

Shelby is the subject; she is liking and talking. Marvin is the object; all the liking and talking is done to Marvin but not by Marvin.

Subject and object pronouns function in the same way.

Subject pronouns include I, you, he, she, it, they, we.
Object pronouns include me, you, him, her, it, us, them. See the following examples:

Subject
I might see you later.
You have to come now.
She lives in Nebraska.
He makes me angry
It just might work.
They caught the last train.
We cant see the end.

Object
Sarah hit me on the arm.
I need to tell you something.
Larry took him aside.
The message wasnt for her.
Take it to the store.
Summer is fun for us.
Margaret took them downstairs.

Possessive pronouns show who owns something described in a sentence. They include mine, his, hers, its, ours, yours, their, and theirs. Possessive adjectives are similar to possessive pronouns. However, the possessive adjective comes before the object of the sentence; the possessive pronoun is the object of the sentence. See the difference here:

That is my dog. (possessive adjective, before the object dog)
The dog is mine. (possessive pronoun, which is the object)

Intensive pronouns and reflexive pronouns look the same. However, they act differently in a sentence. Intensive pronouns put an emphasis on other pronouns or nouns. Reflexive pronouns rename the subject in a sentence. Look at the following examples:

Intensive pronoun  She herself will go to the bank. (herself emphasizes the pronoun she)
Reflexive pronoun  She cut herself on the arm. (herself renames the pronoun she)

Intensive and reflexive pronouns include:
myself, yourself, himself, herself, itself, ourselves, yourselves, and themselves.

Demonstrative pronouns refer to things in relation to distance.
This and these refer to things that are close by. That and those refer to things farther away.

This is your shirt.
That is my house on the corner.
These good friends are sitting next to me.
Those roads in the next town are bumpy.

Indefinite pronouns replace nouns that are not specified. They include the following: all, another, any, anybody, anyone, anything, both, each, either, everybody, everyone, everything, few, many, neither, nobody, none, no one, nothing, one, several, some, somebody, someone, and something. Read the example sentences for a better understanding.

We gave everything to the homeless shelter
All were sad to see the children go.
Give a present to each as they come in.

Interrogative pronouns are used to ask a question. They include who, whom, what, which, whose, whoever, whomever, whatever, and whichever. Consider the example sentences below:

Which of these do you like best?
Who was just in this room?
Whatever happens next, I am prepared.

Relative pronouns connect (relate) noun or pronoun clauses with other parts of a sentence. They include who, whom, what, which, whose, whoever, whomever, whatever, whichever, and that. See how these are used in the sentences below.

The paper that she just wrote is due tomorrow.
Learning is easier for people who have a good teacher.
Whoever leaves the room needs to turn off the light.

Pronouns do a lot in the English language, don't they? They are the no-name workhorses, jumping in for the superstar nouns when they get exhausted. Hey, someone's got to do something about the work nobody wants to do!

gerund

Definition:
A traditional grammatical term for a verbal that ends in -ing and functions as a noun. Adjective: gerundial.

A gerund with its objects, complements, and modifiers is called a gerund phrase or simply a noun phrase.

Examples and Observations:

"Feeling gratitude and not expressing it is like wrapping a present and not giving it."
(William A. Ward)


"Shooting paintballs is not an art form."
(Bart Simpson, The Simpsons)


"Humor is laughing at what you haven't got when you ought to have it."
(Langston Hughes)


"Because they are nounlike, we can think of gerunds as names. But rather than naming persons, places, things, events, and the like, as nouns generally do, gerunds, because they are verbs in form, name activities or behaviors or states of mind or states of being."
(Martha Kolln and Robert Funk, Understanding English Grammar. Allyn & Bacon, 1998)


"All talk of winning the people by appealing to their intelligence, of conquering them by impeccable syllogism, is so much moonshine."
(H. L. Mencken)


"Eighty percent of success is showing up."
(Woody Allen)


Gerunds and Verbal Nouns
"A gerund is derived from a verb by adding the suffix -ing. The result is still a verb, and it exhibits ordinary verbal properties, such as taking objects and adverbs. Example: In football, deliberately tripping an opponent is a foul. Here the verb trip occurs in its gerund form tripping, but this tripping is still a verb: it takes the adverb deliberately and the object an opponent. However, the entire phrase deliberately tripping an opponent, because of the gerund within it, now functions as a noun phrase, in this case as the subject of the sentence. So, a gerund is still a verb, but the phrase built around it is nominal, not verbal.

"Very different is a verbal noun constructed with -ing. Though derived from a verb, a verbal noun is strictly a noun, and it exhibits nominal properties . . .."
(R.L. Trask, Mind the Gaffe! Harper, 2006)


Gerunds and Present Participles
"Present participles and gerunds look similar as words, and they also look similar as phrases. Again, it is the -ing verbal form that causes this problem. To clearly distinguish these, we need to consider their grammatical functions. A present participle functions as a non-finite form of a verb phrase, after verbs of motion and position; it can be an adverb complement after these verbs; it can qualify/modify as an adjective does. In contrast, gerunds like nouns have naming roles and can occupy the place of nouns in many of their grammatical functions. Unlike nouns, they do not name persons, places, things, or events; they name actions, states, and behaviors."

active and passive sentences

Some examples of active and passive sentences:

ACTIVE: They speak English.
PASSIVE: English is spoken.

ACTIVE: They spoke English.
PASSIVE: English was spoken.

ACTIVE: They will speak English.
PASSIVE: English will be spoken.

ACTIVE: They are going to speak English.
PASSIVE: English is going to be spoken.

ACTIVE: They are speaking English.
PASSIVE: English is being spoken.

ACTIVE: They were speaking English.
PASSIVE: English was being spoken.

ACTIVE: They have spoken English.
PASSIVE: English has been spoken.

ACTIVE: They had spoken English.
PASSIVE: English had been spoken.

ACTIVE: They will have spoken English.
PASSIVE: English will have been spoken.

5. Perfect progressive verb forms are generally used in active voice only. That is, these are good English sentences:

ACTIVE: They have been speaking English.
ACTIVE: They had been speaking English.
ACTIVE: They will have been speaking English.

But sentences like these are rarely used:

PASSIVE: English has been being spoken.
PASSIVE: English had been being spoken.
PASSIVE: English will have been being spoken.