Pronouns
Understanding pronouns
Before we can understand a word, we first have to retrieve its meaning from memory. Most of the time, this happens quickly—so quickly we call it automatic—but sometimes it doesn't, sometimes the word is good and dusty.
Say my lab manager says, “Sally saw Rosemary Clooney on the bus today!” I'll quickly retrieve some meaningful representation for Sally and saw and bus and today, but Rosemary Clooney might throw me. I retrieve her a bit at a time, one piece leading to another. She sounds familiar. She's a singer, right? Isn't she George Clooney's aunt? Then I remember Rosemary Clooney, George's aunt, died several years ago. “No way,” I reply, that bit of idiomatic speech rolling off my tongue effortlessly. “She's been dead for years.” And here we've come to a pronoun. My lab manager delves into memory for representations of dead and years, and finds them, no problem. Delving for she, my lab manager comes back up with a representation of Rosemary Clooney. But she doesn't always mean Rosemary Clooney. Sometimes she means Sally or Hillary Clinton or the girl I ate lunch with on the first day of seventh grade. She could be anything that can be referenced as a single female—even a ship or a country. But my lab manager knows, straight away, that she is Rosemary Clooney. Pronouns involve that extra step, that discourse mining, that sensitivity to intent and likelihood: that matchmaking. Right here, right now, who is she?
Dummy pronouns, they're called, and we come across them all the time (you read one in the previous sentence). They're those pronouns that exist only because the English language demands that each sentence contain a subject: the it in “It's raining” or the there in “There is a shed in my back yard.”
listening to proper names, over and over again, can be disruptive. Each proper name will bring with it a host of associations—not all of them particularly relevant. Think about it. When you hear the name Emily Dickinson, you may not just retrieve aspects of Emily Dickinson's life and work; you may also think of every Emily you've ever known, as well as the time you considered naming the family dog Emily. Or you may access a beloved high school English teacher, or the embarrassment you felt when you read a Dickinson poem aloud to your seventh-grade class and pronounced all of the dashes.
there are plenty of pronouns in need of more study—the diectics (here, there), the reflexives (himself, themselves), the interrogatives (who, what), the possessives (his, mine), the indefinites (somebody, anything)—each with its own relatively unexamined life. Definition: A pronoun is a word that substitutes a noun or noun phrase. There are a number of different kinds of pronouns in English.
TYPES OF PRONOUN: 1 Demonstrative Pronoun - this, that, these, those 2 Personal Pronoun - I, you, he, she, etc.. 3 Possessive Pronoun - mine, yours, his, etc.. 4 Reflexive Pronoun - myself, yourself, etc.. 5 Interrogative Pronoun - who, what, where, etc.. 6 Negative Pronoun - nothing, no, nobody, etc.. 7 Reciprocal pronoun - each other, etc.. 8 Relative Clause - who, whose, which, that, etc.. 9 Quantifier - some, any, something, much, many, little, etc.
A preposition links nouns, pronouns and phrases to other words in a sentence. The word or phrase that the preposition introduces is called the object of the preposition. A preposition usually indicates the temporal, spatial or logical relationship of its object to the rest of the sentence as in the following examples:
- The book is on the table.
- The book is beneath the table.
- The book is leaning against the table.
- The book is beside the table.
- She held the book over the table.
- She read the book during class.
In each of the preceding sentences, a preposition locates the noun "book" in space or in time.
A prepositional phrase is made up of the preposition, its object and any associated adjectives or adverbs. A prepositional phrase can function as a noun, an adjective, or an adverb. The most common prepositions are "about," "above," "across," "after," "against," "along," "among," "around," "at," "before," "behind," "below," "beneath," "beside," "between," "beyond," "but," "by," "despite," "down," "during," "except," "for," "from," "in," "inside," "into," "like," "near," "of," "off," "on," "onto," "out," "outside," "over," "past," "since," "through," "throughout," "till," "to," "toward," "under," "underneath," "until," "up," "upon," "with," "within," and "without." Each of the highlighted words in the following sentences is a preposition:
The children climbed the mountain **without** fear.
In this sentence, the preposition "without" introduces the noun "fear." The prepositional phrase "without fear" functions as an adverb describing how the children climbed.
There was rejoicing **throughout** the land when the government was defeated.
Here, the preposition "throughout" introduces the noun phrase "the land." The prepositional phrase acts as an adverb describing the location of the rejoicing.
The spider crawled slowly **along** the banister.
The preposition "along" introduces the noun phrase "the banister" and the prepositional phrase "along the banister" acts as an adverb, describing where the spider crawled.
The dog is hiding **under** the porch because it knows it will be punished for chewing up a new pair **of** shoes.
Here the preposition "under" introduces the prepositional phrase "under the porch," which acts as an adverb modifying the compound verb "is hiding."
The screenwriter searched **for** the manuscript he was certain was somewhere **in** his office.
Similarly in this sentence, the preposition "in" introduces a prepositional phrase "in his office," which acts as an adverb describing the location of the missing papers.
List of all prepositions: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_English_prepositions
