Chief Taiwo’s family is a hospitable one. The wife is very caring. Chief Taiwo himself is benevolent and kind-hearted. His wife is quite supportive.

I want to warn you not to associate yourself with deceitful, immoral and dishonest people who craftily entice your innocent youths.

It is malicious and callous for a person to go about saying things that are untrue about others.

ASSIGNMENT

Dictionary Work

Use your dictionary to write out the meaning of the following words and construct good sentences with them.

(i) Malicious (ii) callous (iii) benevolent (iv) promising (v) cruel

TOPIC: Pronouns

Personal and Possessive Pronouns

A pronoun can simply be described as a replacement for a noun to avoid repetition. It can also be defined as a word that is used instead of a noun.

Example

I gave Sola the money; Sola’s father sent to money to Sola, to avoid the repetition of the noun, Sola, the above sentence can read thus:

I gave Sola the money her (pronoun) father sent to her.

Note the pronoun “her” replaced Sola in the sentence.

Pronouns include: he, she, they, us, it, this, these, that, those, we, I, you, each, somebody, nobody, number, many, few, several, something, myself, himself, herself, and themselves etc.

We are considering two out of the eight types of pronouns. They are personal and possessive pronouns.

Personal Pronouns

These are words used in place of any of the three persons we have in English language. The first-person pronoun refers to the person speaking while the second-person pronoun refers to the person(s) being addressed, and the third person refers to the person(s) or thing(s) spoken about. Personal pronouns have singular and plural forms and they can also be used both in the nominative or subjective as well as accusative or objective cases. The table below illustrates the personal pronouns at a glance.

Persons Singular            Plural

Subjective         Objective           Subjective         Objective

1st        I           me        we        us

2nd       you       you       you       you

3rd       he, she, it           him, her, it         they      them

Possessive Pronouns

These are pronouns which show ownership. For example, ‘The house is mine’ means that the house is owned by me.

Other examples of possessive pronouns are his, ours, yours, theirs.

It is important to note the difference between possessive adjectives and possessive pronouns, and master these two forms and their uses so as not to confuse them. For example:

This is my ruler. (possessive adjective).

This ruler is mine. (possessive pronoun).

These are our goods. (possessive adjective).

These goods are ours. (possessive pronouns).

The table below illustrates the possessive pronouns in their adjective and pronoun forms.

Persons Singular            Plural

Poss. Adjective   Poss. Pronoun    Poss. Adjective   Poss. Pronoun

1st        my        mine     our       ours

2nd       your      yours    your      yours

3rd       his        his        their      theirs

3rd       her        hers      their      theirs

3rd       its         its         their      theirs

EVALUATION

What are the three persons we have in English language?

Name the two forms of possessive pronouns.

Use the following pronouns two construct three sentences: I, we, them.

ASSIGNMENT

Construct ten sentences with these pronouns, one for each: mine, you, she, him, it, theirs, hers, his, yours, theirs.

TOPIC: Indefinite and Reciprocal Pronouns

Indefinite pronouns are such pronouns that are not specific or exact about what they are used to refer to, or about the quality or number of what they are used to describe. The following are some examples of indefinite pronouns.

Many came for the party.

Few were there in the morning.

I bought some.

You can take any.

Both are missing.

I have left all in the room.

Each has a different view.

These pronouns are used when an action is reciprocated or shared. When an action is shared by just two people or between two things such pronouns used are referred to as reciprocal pronouns. Examples of these pronouns are reflected in the sentences below:

James and Joseph spoke to each other regularly on the phone.

The dog and the cat do not like each other.

The boys pulled each other in the ear.

The girl and her mother smiled at each other

The man and his wife love each other.

Note that when the action is shared between just two people then it is appropriate to use “each other” as the reciprocal pronoun. But when the action involves more than two people as we have in the examples below, then it is most appropriate to use ‘one another’: Examples are:

The students brought presents for one another.

The sheep, the goat and the dog often play with one another.

The students often laugh at one another’s mistakes

The passengers in the train exchanged pleasantries with one another.

The mothers helped one another to carry their babies and baskets