AN INTRODUCTION TO PRONOUNS

Pronouns are words that are used in place of nouns or phrases, to prevent unnecessary repetition or to simplify how we reference subjects or objects once known.

David is my brother. David is 20 years old. David is very tall, and we love David dearly.
In the above sentences we are talking about David, but as we can see, it’s not a very natural sounding group of statements. The repetition of the word David becomes tiresome.

Below is the same group of statements, but with pronouns used in place of the noun David.

David is my brother. He is 20 years old. He is very tall, and we love him dearly.
After we have established that David is the subject (and in this case also an object) we can substitute any further references to him with pronouns. This clearly makes things scan much more naturally without needing to repeat the noun over and over. So we can see how invaluable pronouns are to constructing natural sounding sentences.

Pronouns extend to beyond just the subject of a sentence. In fact there are several types of pronoun we must learn. This makes the subject rather complicated. So, today we will attempt to introduce the easier types of pronoun as an introduction, and return to more involved types another time.

Subject pronouns
Loosely speaking, the subject of the sentence is who or what the sentence is about. Almost anyone or anything can be a subject including inanimate objects and things.

Rather like verbs, we group pronouns into the six form paradigm, depending which type of subject they represent.

Subject pronouns

	Singular	Plural
1st Person	yo (I)	nosotros/nosotras (we)
2nd Person	tú (you)	vosotros/vosotras (you all)
3rd Person	él (he) ella (she) usted (you)	ellos/ellas (they) ustedes (you all)

Note: The nosotros, vosotros and ellos forms each have the feminine versions of nosotras, vosotras and ellas when appropriate.

Remember: The formal usted and ustedes forms for "you" and "you all" are associated with the third person.

Let’s see some VERY basic sentences using some of these pronouns:

Yo hablo español	I speak Spanish
Tú hablas español	You speak Spanish
Él come mucho	He eats a lot
Nosotros comemos bien	We eat well
Vosotras vivís aquí	You all live here
Ellos viven aquí	They live here

Often, it is unnecessary to include a subject pronoun in a sentence. In fact, they usually only appear when we need clarification on the subject, or if we want to emphasis who the subject is. Otherwise they are usually omitted. Reasons for clarification include: a change of subject, there being more than one possible subject or that the verb conjugation used is not unique within the tense.

In English, when the subject is a thing or does not have a gender we may use the pronoun “it”. In Spanish there is no subject pronoun for “it”, so we omit the subject pronoun altogether.

Subject pronouns typically precede a verb and all other pronouns that may be associated with it, including negation. For instance:

“Yo no les hablé” (I did not speak to them)

The subject pronoun precedes even the negation, but remember it’s not usually necessary unless you’re emphasising the point.

Prepositional object pronouns
A preposition is a word that usually precedes a noun or pronoun, and expresses a relationship to another words in the sentence. Let’s see some examples of sentences using prepositions:

I'm giving them to David

It's for him

Come towards me

Spending time with them

Bring it to her, and not to me

In the above examples, we can see prepositions like “to”, “from”, “with”, “towards” etc., they all express a relationship with what precedes them and either a noun or pronoun.

Let’s see the types of pronouns we can use with prepositions. As usual, grouped into the six form paradigm.

Prepositional object pronouns

	Singular	Plural
1st Person	mí (me)	nosotros/nosotras (us)
2nd Person	ti (you)	vosotros/vosotras (you all)
3rd Person	él (him) ella (her) usted (you) sí (himself, herself, yourself)	ellos/ellas (them) ustedes (you all) sí (themselves, yourselves)

Now let’s see some basic sentence constructions using pronouns after prepositions:

Es para mí	It's for me
Yo estaba pensando en ti	I was thinking about you
¿Son para ella?	Are they for her?
No te vayas sin nosotros	Don't go without us
Este lugar no es para vosotros	This place is not for you
Quiero ir con ellos	I want to go with them

Notice that in the last example, we are using the word “con” meaning with.

Whenever we combine “con” with the pronouns “mí”, “ti” or “sí”, then we must use the special case vocabulary “conmigo”, “contigo” or “consigo”. Thus, expressions like “Come with me” become “Ven conmigo” and never “Ven con mí”.

Possessive pronouns
As their name may suggest, possessive pronouns express when a person or thing belongs to another. Words like “mine”, “yours”, “his”, “hers”, "ours" and “theirs” are all examples of possessive pronouns.

Before we look at some sentence constructions using possessive pronouns. Let’s quickly review their forms:

Possessive pronouns

	Singular	Plural
1st Person	el mío, la mía, los míos, las mías (mine)	el nuestro, la nuestra, los nuestro, las nuestras (ours)
2nd Person	el tuyo, la tuya, los tuyos, las tuyas (yours)	el vuestro, la vuestra, los vuestro, las vuestras (yours)
3rd Person	el suyo, la suya, los suyos, las suyas (his, hers, its, yours formal)	el suyo, la suya, los suyos, las suyas (theirs, yours formal)

Notice that within the usual six form paradigm, the pronouns appear to act like adjectives, whereby there are four versions of each that distinguish between gender and plurality.

You may have also noticed that all forms are prefixed with an article, which also agrees.

To use possessive pronouns, we select the form by subject then further select a form that agrees with the gender and plurality. Let’s look at some examples to help clarify this:

¿Qué perro se lo comió, el mío o el tuyo?	Which dog ate it, mine or yours?
¿Qué perra se lo comió, la mía o la tuya?	Which dog (bitch) ate it, mine or yours?
Tu madre y la mía son amigas	Your mother and mine are friends
Me gustan mis cosas y él prefiere las suyas	I like my things and he prefers his
Lo nuestro es genial	What we have is great
¡Son míos!	They are mine!
Cariño, soy tuyo	Darling, I'm yours

Notice that in the last two examples, we appear to be missing an article. This is because: following the verb Ser, possessive pronouns function adjectivally, meaning we do not use an article.

When we want to talk about an abstract idea, rather than physical things, we may use a neuter possessive pronoun, which will use the neuter article “lo” which in turn forces a singular masculine form.

The example given “Lo nuestro es genial” literally means: “Ours is great”. But as we are using a neuter form, “ours” becomes more idiomatic in meaning and less literal.

Conclusion | En conclusión
As we alluded to earlier, pronouns are an extremely tricky and involved topic. Today, we’ve only scratched the surface with regards to the different types of pronouns. We will return to this subject in more detail another time, where we will look more closely at the types of object pronouns that go hand in hand with verbs.

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