Table of Contents
What is a Pronoun?
Pronouns are words that take the place of a noun.
So rather than say, “The boy’s ball bounced”, we can use the pronoun “his” as in, “His ball bounced”.
Examples of common pronouns include: I, me, we, they, you, he, she, it, yours, himself and ourselves.
Types of Pronoun?.
There are a number of categories of pronoun including those in the primary national curriculum:
- Personal Pronouns (I, you, we , she, he, it, they) – Year 4
- Possessive pronouns (mine, yours, his, hers, ours, theirs) – Year 4
- Relative Pronouns (who, when, which, where, whose, that) – Year 5
There are a number of categories of pronoun NOT in the primary national curriculum:
- Reflexive pronouns (myself, himself, herself, yourself, themselves, itself, ourselves)
- Reciprocal pronouns (each other, one another)
- Demonstrative pronouns (this, that, those)
- Interrogative pronouns (who, what, why, where, when, – used as a question)
- Indefinite pronouns (anything, anybody, something, someone, nobody, none)
What is a POSSESSIVE Pronoun?
A possessive pronoun indicates the owner of something.
- My bag is over there.
- My homework was excellent.
- His lesson was graded outstanding.
A list of all Possessive Pronouns.
- my,
- your,
- his,
- hers,
- its,
- our,
- yours,
- their
- mine,
- yours,
- his,
- hers,
- ours,
- theirs
Never use an Apostrophe!
We know that apostrophes can be used to show possession (it belongs to something or someone). However, possessive pronouns, e.g. its, hers, yours, ours, theirs do not need an apostrophe; despite them showing possession.
Professor David Crystal explains it in his book The Fight for English: How language pundits ate, shot, and left (Crystal 2006), pp. 134-135:
Its is just as possessive as cat’s, but it doesn’t have an apostrophe. Why not? Because the printers and grammarians. never thought the matter through. They applied their rule to nouns and forgot about pronouns, thus creating an exception (along with the food is hers, ours, yours, theirs) without realizing it. And even if they had noticed, they wouldn’t have done anything about it, for it’s was already taken, as it were, as the abbreviation of it is.
Possessive Pronouns and the National Curriculum
Possessive Pronouns and SATs papers
Pronoun questions in the SATs papers come in a few flavours:
1. Identify the pronouns:
2. add in a pronoun:
Possessive Pronouns Exercise
Underline the possessive pronouns in the story below:
Last school year, my family and I visited my grandparents in Wales. We packed all our clothes and loads of games into the car quickly because it was raining and my mum drove what seemed like an age. I didn’t mind too much as I was allowed to play on my tablet in the back of the car.
As we got closer to my grandparents house, the weather steadily improved and just before we arrived at their house my grandad called my mum and arranged to meet at a beach nearby as it was so warm and sunny. My grandma bought me an ice cream, which I ate really quickly. In fact, I ate it so quickly my grandma let me finish hers off!
My grandparents house is full of strange ornaments and trinkets from their holidays all over the world. They have little camels from Egypt, a cowboy hat from America, a boomerang from Australia and a golden cat that waves its arm from China. My grandad loved to let my sister and I choose an object and tell us the story behind it.