Nouns and Pronouns

Photo: Google Archive
Text: Elias Alves

Many students have difficuties to identify a noun or a pronoun in a sentence because sometimes a pronoun is used in place of a noun. 

In English grammar, a noun is a word used to name or indentify any of a class or group of things, people, places or ideas or a particular one of these. In English you often find two nouns next to each other  without linking words or "apostropher s" ('s). Some examples:

• The chair back (the back of the chair);
• The children hollyday (the hollyday of the children);
• The family party (The party of the family). 

A pronoun is a word used in place of a noun or a noun phrase. A noun phrase is a phrase with the same function of a noun in a sentence. Some examples of pronouns:

• Personal pronouns - I, she, he, you, they and it.
• Reflexive pronouns - me, myself, her, herself, him, himself, yours, yourself, yourselves, ourselves, theirselves, them and thenselves.
• Possessive pronouns - my, mine, her, his, your, their and its.
• Demonstrative pronouns - this, that, these, those.
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As you can see, the wword "her" is a possessive pronoun in some cases and a reflexive pronoun in others. Examples:

• She buyed her car last week. (possessive pronoun)
• Mario sent a message for her. (reflexive pronoun)

In the next post, I will aproach the nouns again with more details.