Plain English

Then they naturally thought that one would think second of the person spoken to, so the pronouns referring to the person spoken to are called the second person pronouns. Formerly thou was used in speaking to one person. In German and many other languages this form is still used, but in English we do not today use the singular form thou with its variations, thy, thine, and thee, except in poetry or poetic prose. In every-day speech we use you and its forms, your and yours, for both the singular and the plural.

Then the Romans considered last the person or thing of whom they were speaking; so pronouns referring to the person or thing spoken of are called the third person pronouns. These are he, she, and it, with their other forms, his, him, her, hers, its, in the singular, and they, their, theirs and them in the plural.

A personal pronoun is one that denotes the speaker, the person spoken to, or the person or thing spoken of.

COMPOUND PERSONAL PRONOUNS

205. All of these forms of pronouns which we have named are simple forms; but we have several personal pronouns which have a compound form; that is, a form made by the addition of self or selves to the simple forms.

These are called compound personal pronouns. They are, in the singular, myself, thyself, yourself, himself, herself, itself, and in the plural, ourselves, yourselves and themselves.

The compound personal pronouns have two uses, reflexive and emphatic.

Reflexive

206. A compound personal pronoun has a reflexive use when the actor becomes the object of its own action or in other words when the subject and the object refer to the same thing; as in this sentence, He has hurt himself, himself is the object of the incomplete verb has hurt, but it refers to the subject he. Reflexive is from the Latin re meaning back and from the Latin verb meaning throw, so reflexive means literally thrown back. These pronouns throw their meaning back to the subject.

Emphatic

207. A compound personal pronoun has also an emphatic use when it directs especial attention to the noun or pronoun to which it refers. For example in the sentence, He did the work himself, or, He, himself, did the work, himself gives emphasis or intensifies the meaning of the pronoun he.

Remember a compound personal pronoun is correctly used only in these two ways, reflexive and emphatic. For example, the following sentences are incorrect:

This is for yourself and your comrade.

Ourselves will find out the reason.

The correct form would be:

This is for you and your comrade.

We, ourselves, will find out the reason.

208. You can readily distinguish between the reflexive and the emphatic use. In the reflexive, the compound personal pronoun is always the object of a verb or preposition, and the subject of the sentence is its antecedent. The subject and the object always refer to the same thing.

In the emphatic use, the compound personal pronoun is neither the subject nor the object, but is thrown into the sentence simply to render it emphatic, and to call special attention to its antecedent.

Exercise 1

Supply the compound personal pronoun in the following blanks and tell whether the use is reflexive or emphatic.

1. He discovered the truth.......

2. The workers have robbed......by their ignorance.

3. You must educate.......

4. You must do the work.......

5. He must defend.......

6. Capitalism overreaches.......

7. The people will rule.......

8. We will settle the question.......

Write six sentences in which the compound personal pronouns are correctly used.

SINGULAR AND PLURAL

209. Personal pronouns, like nouns, have number form. Nouns simply add s to the singular form to denote the plural, but in personal pronouns we have different words which we use to express one or more than one person or thing. In the first, second, and third person forms, personal pronouns also have different forms for the object form, the possessive and the subject form. The following table gives the singular and plural of the subject form,—that is the form which is used as the subject of the sentence.

210. Remember that the first person refers to the person speaking, the second to the person spoken to, and the third person to the person or things spoken of. When we speak of things, we never use the first or second person, unless we are speaking of them in a personified form. So in the third person singular, we have the pronoun it which refers to one thing. In the plural, we have no special pronoun referring to things, but the pronoun they is used to refer both to persons and things.

Exercise 2

Which of the following pronouns refer to the person speaking, which to the person spoken to, and which to the person or thing spoken of? Which are singular, which plural?

I will defend my principles.

Give them to me for they are mine.

Do you believe him to be your friend?

We saw their mistake at once.

They acknowledged it was their fault.

Success will be your portion if you persevere.

He struggles for his rights; she does not understand her rights.

It forces us to struggle for our education.

Woman craves her freedom.

Workers of the world, unite; you have a world to gain and nothing to lose but your chains.

Form sentences of your own containing all these pronouns.

POSSESSIVE FORM

211. You will note in these sentences above that we have used the pronoun my and your and his and her as my principles, your friend, his rights, her freedom. This is the possessive form of these personal pronouns, the form that denotes ownership or possession. You remember that nouns had a possessive form, a form to denote possession or ownership, as, The man's book. The boy's school.The worker's college. So pronouns also have a possessive form which we use to show that an object belongs to such and such a person or thing. If I want to tell you that I own or possess a home, I say, I own my home. Each personal pronoun has its possessive form, thus:

POSSESSIVE FORM

212. You will notice that the possessive forms, my, our, her, your, its, his and their, are always used with the name of the object possessed. As for example; my work, our library, her delight, your task, its purpose, his home, their mistake.