Pronoun

A pronoun is traditionally a part of speech in grammar, but many modern linguists call it a type of noun.^[1] In English, pronouns are words such as me, she, his, them, herself, each other, it, what.

Pronouns are often used to take the place of a noun, to avoid repeating the noun. For example, instead of saying

• Tom has a new dog. Tom has named the dog Max, and Tom lets the dog sleep by Tom's bed.

it is easier to say

• Tom has a new dog. He has named him Max and he lets him sleep by his bed.

When a pronoun replaces a noun, the noun is called the antecedent. For example, in the sentence: The dog that was walking down the street, the relative pronoun is the word that referring back to the antecedent, the word 'dog'. In the sentence The spy who loved me, the relative pronoun is the word 'who' and its antecedent is the word 'spy'.^[2]

1. ↑ Huddleston R. & Pullum G.K. 2002. The Cambridge Grammar of the English language. Cambridge University Press.
2. ↑ "Pronouns and Antecedents". Writing Commons. Retrieved 2022-06-11.