Words which can be used to replace nouns are known as pronouns. Pronouns help to avoid repetitiveness in a sentence and helps polish it. Unlike Chinese and Japanese language, English language has gender in pronouns.
Example to show use of pronouns
Read the given paragraphs to understand pronouns and their roles:
Use of only nouns:
Harry is a 14 year old boy and Hermione is a 15 year old girl. Harry and Hermione are best friends. Harry loves to play football while Hermione loves to play hockey. Harry bought a hockey stick for Hermione and Hermione bought a football for Harry. Harry loves Hermione a lot. Hermione always helps Harry in difficult situations.
Use of pronouns:
Harry is a 14 year old boy and Hermione is a 15 year old girl. They are best friends. She loves to play football while he loves to play hockey. He bought a hockey stick for her and she bought a football for him. He loves her a lot. She always helps him in difficult situations.
We can see that use of pronouns in second paragraph have made sentences short and sweet. Thus, it can be concluded that pronouns are precise words used in place of nouns.
Types of Pronouns
Some examples pronouns are:
I, He, She, we, her, him, herself, yourself, them, those, ourselves, several, each other, many, much, little
There are seven types of pronouns. They are:
Personal Pronouns
Pronouns which change their form according to their different uses in a sentence are called Personal Pronouns. Personal pronouns are used instead of the names of persons, places and things.
Interrogative Pronouns
Pronouns which help to introduce/ask questions are called Interrogative Pronouns. They are: Who, which, what, whose, whom etc.
Reflexive Pronouns
Pronouns having self/selves (suffix) to show how subjects action affects subjects themselves are known as Reflexive Pronouns. These pronouns always refer back to subject.
Demonstrative Pronouns
The word Demonstrative itself gives us an idea that it is related to showing or stating the position or situation of animals, objects or ideas. Demonstrative Pronouns are those words which specify nouns or pronouns, and can be either singular or plural.
Relative Pronouns
Relative pronouns are those words which help in relating. Relative Pronouns are pronouns which introduce words, clause or part of sentence which describe nouns.
Reciprocal Pronouns
Literally, reciprocal means two way actions and in grammatical sense reciprocal means expressing mutual action. Reciprocal pronouns only denote plural nouns because the action has to be shared.
Indefinite Pronouns
The name itself gives us an idea that Indefinite pronouns do not specify particular nouns. Indefinite means not fixed. Therefore, Indefinite pronouns are largest groups of pronouns which refer to people, things or amount in general.