Talk:Personal pronoun

Feminine personal pronoun for countries, states, etc.

I have seen countries and states referred to as "it," but am told the correct way to refer to them (in legal writing) is with a feminine pronoun (she, her). I cannot find a citation for this rule, and I cannot see that this is done uniformly. Anyone have any ideas?--Hhoblit (talk) 16:55, 7 July 2008 (UTC)

This page is way too English-centric

This page is written from the point of view of an English speaker. The pronoun phenomena is much too diverse to be based on English (which actually has a very simple personal pronoun system). —Preceding unsigned comment added by 63.249.108.58 (talk) 08:20, 25 June 2008 (UTC)

English part already covered

Biggest part about the english personal pronoun on this page is already coverded (and better) in the main page "English personal pronoun". I suggest deleting it here. Parts that aren't in this main page could be moved there. Ikwilhetweten (talk) 11:53, 31 July 2008 (UTC)

"Its" used to be "his."

I believe the third-person singular neuter archaic possessives (pronoun and adjective) are "his."--Dustin Asby 17:25, 6 January 2006 (UTC)

You are correct, but to be honest, I don't think the table should be giving all these archaic and non-standard forms anyway. It's one thing to add footnotes with links to relevant articles; actually including such forms in the table seems like bloat. Ruakh 21:11, 7 January 2006 (UTC)

We could split the table and have a mini-table for archaics only? And maybe a separate one for informals? Dunno. PizzaMargherita 09:37, 8 January 2006 (UTC)

"We" has multiple singular senses.

In response to PizzaMargherita's last edit: we has multiple singular senses. Unlike singular they, which really has all the meaning of plural they except that it's singular, some of the singular uses of we are not we-like at all ("How are we feeling today?"). Ruakh 21:21, 7 January 2006 (UTC)

I don't feel too strongly about it, so change back if you want, but the way it reads now

The forms of we are also sometimes used with a singular sense.

does not imply that there is only one "singular sense". It does say that there are many forms, each with their "singular sense", and it does link to we. I just think that the alternative

The forms of we are also sometimes used with singular senses.

sounds awkward. PizzaMargherita 23:40, 7 January 2006 (UTC)

I don't feel too strongly about it, either, so I think I'll just leave it be. Ruakh 07:51, 8 January 2006 (UTC)

Y'all

In many dialects of English, "Y'all" is singular. "All Y'all" is plural. --Trweiss 00:24, 12 January 2006 (UTC)

I've heard that before, and I call bullshit, as do many people more knowledgeable than I. Nonetheless, Wikipedia's policy is neutral point of view, so I guess we should explain that some people claim this and that knowledgeable people call bullshit. ;-) Ruakh 01:30, 12 January 2006 (UTC)

I travel to certain parts of the States where my host will ask me, "Y'all have a good trip?" I look around and there is no one else there but me. Am I to conclude that my host must be seeing double or you are not nearly as knowledgeable as you think? And your link (if you've bothered to read it) quotes several points of view. And now for the emoticon that smooths over all rudeness: ;-) --Trweiss 15:04, 12 January 2006 (UTC)

Okay, judging by your last sentence, my comment was ruder than I meant it to be; I'm sorry about that. (I guess I was relying on the smiley to make my last sentence less harsh.)

I was rude, too. (Sorry.) The winking smiley comment was meant in a ha-ha-only-serious kind of way. --Trweiss 17:20, 13 January 2006 (UTC)

I travel to certain parts of the States where my host will ask me, "Y'all have a good trip?" I look around and there is no one else there but me. Am I to conclude that my host must be seeing double [...]? One of the benefits of a second-person singular-plural distinction is that you can say something like this. The implication - if y'all is plural, as most people say it is - is "Did you and the people you traveled with have a good trip?" Now, if the trip was by car, and you were the only person in the car, then that's a strange thing to say; my guess is that this might simply be an idiom - that a Southerner would never construct a new sentence with singular y'all, but might apply a generally-plural idiom to a single individual in certain circumstances - but I'm not really knowledgeable enough to say for sure.

Even if we do accept that y'all can be singular (an interpretation that I don't currently accept, but that I'm open to), that doesn't justify your original statement, since those who say y'all will definitely use it as a plural, and will also say you (singular). Are you really claiming that you've encountered people who will never say you at all and will never use y'all with a plural sense? Because that's the implication of your original statement.

You are right that my original statement is confusing. A clarification: I am arguing that, in addition to people who say "you" and "y'all" as the singular and plural 2nd person pronouns, there are also those who say "y'all" regardless of the number of antecedents. This reintroduces the ambiguity which plagues standard English. "All y'all" is used to re-fix that problem in some areas and is by no means universal among people who say "y'all". --Trweiss 17:20, 13 January 2006 (UTC)

[...] or you are not nearly as knowledgeable as you think? I didn't claim I was knowledgeable. I made a point of linking to a page that was written by someone who is, and that gives information from various other people who are. (You're right that the page quotes several points of view, which is why I chose that specific link - I try to be a good Wikipedian, you know - but if you read the whole thing, you'll see that the page as a whole makes strong arguments against the "Y'all is singular; all y'all is plural" point of view.)

Anyway, again, sorry for the rudeness of my original comment; I didn't intend it.

Ruakh 20:54, 12 January 2006 (UTC)

Their

"Their" is also used as a singular gender-neutral possessive pronoun, as in "Each student will be mailed their report card". Granted this is considered incorrect by many. Traditionally, the sentence should be "Each student will be mailed his report card" even if the student body contains girls or women. However, using their instead of his is very common. --Trweiss 00:24, 12 January 2006 (UTC)

The article mentions this; see note #4 after the table of personal pronouns in English. Ruakh 01:23, 12 January 2006 (UTC)

Gotcha. I see that now. Would an example be helpful here? The language of note #4 is somewhat technical. --Trweiss 15:09, 12 January 2006 (UTC)

Possibly. I think those notes should be brief, and it already directs the reader to Singular they, but it might be good to add a brief example. How does this sound? :

The forms of they are also sometimes used with grammatically or semantically singular antecedents: Someone dropped their shoe. It is a matter of some dispute whether and when such usage is acceptable; see Singular they. In these uses, themselves is often changed to themself.

Ruakh 21:08, 12 January 2006 (UTC)

Sounds good. --Trweiss 17:40, 13 January 2006 (UTC)

Incidentally, note that "their" is actually a possessive determiner; the corresponding possessive pronoun is "theirs." Ruakh 01:23, 12 January 2006 (UTC)

The determiner article lists "their" as a possessive pronoun. Is it incorrect? --Trweiss 15:14, 12 January 2006 (UTC)

Interesting. That article reads "possessive adjectives" in the lead text, but "possessive pronouns" in the body of the article. At any rate, it's not really wrong, more out-of-date. English's possessive construct used to be thought of as a noun's genitive case (and indeed it descends from the Anglo-Saxon genitive), and in that view a possessive determiner is simply the genitive case of the corresponding pronoun: Jake → Jake's, me → my. Nowadays, linguists regard the final -'s as a clitic that's appended to a noun to form a possessive determinative construction, in which view the possessive determiner is just that: a possessive determiner. ("Possessive adjective" is an in-between term that acknowledges that it's not really a pronoun, since what it's replacing isn't really a noun, but that uses the term "adjective" rather than the newer, more precise terms "determinative" and "determiner.") I think primary and secondary schools still generally include possessive determiners in the term "possessive pronoun," but linguists don't. So, as I said, it's not really wrong, but it's not the best term for it. Ruakh 21:08, 12 January 2006 (UTC)

Calling "their" (and other possessive adjectives) a "possessive pronoun" is certainly more wrong than calling it a "possessive adjective", which I think is perfectly correct. I'll change that. PizzaMargherita 21:23, 12 January 2006 (UTC)

Can we cut the non-standard pronouns?

Can we cut the archaic and non-standard pronouns from the main table? I think it's just bloat. There are some major archaic and non-standard pronouns that deserve note (thou and its kin; y'all and its kin), but these can easily be moved to a footnote that mentions them briefly and links to You. (To my surprise and delight, You already covers all the notable archaic and non-standard forms, while giving much more information about them than this article currently does.)

(This comment was inspired by PizzaMargherita's last edit summary, with which I agree.)

Ruakh 15:43, 25 April 2006 (UTC)

Third person pronouns in Latin

Latin does have third-person personal pronouns (is, ea, id) as well as demonstrative pronouns including the forms of ille from which most Romance language third-person personal pronouns derive.Kineticman 10:45, 18 May 2006 (UTC)

Other discussions

See also the discussions at Talk:Pronoun. FilipeS 14:17, 29 October 2006 (UTC)

Pronoun systems

Does anyone have access to a reliable reference on pronoun systems? I remember back in various linguistic classes that the most stable (and common) pronoun system will consist of either 6 or 11 pronouns.

6 [ 1s, 1p, 2s, 2p, 3s, 3p ] 11 [ 1s, 1di, 1de, 1pi, 1pe, 2s, 2d, 2p, 3s, 3d, 3p] (singular, dual, plural, inclusive, exclusive)

And that English falls as being in the very rare position of only 5 (1s, 1p, 2, 3s, 3p) and I recall several authors postulating that it is this unstable position that is pushing for people to recreate the distinction between 2s and 2p with various forms (you all/y'all, yous, &c.).

I'd try to find some books, but am pressed for time for the time being, to head to the University to start sifting through the linguistics collections.

68.144.64.164 22:26, 5 June 2007 (UTC)

I take it that by "pronoun" you mean "personal pronoun", and that you consider pronouns that differ only in gender, case, or emphasis to be different forms of the same pronoun? —Ruakh_TALK 15:43, 6 June 2007 (UTC)

His and Your in the Examples Section

At the upper right of the page is a short examples section with the personal pronouns in bold. His and your also appear in the examples but are not bold. I don't pretend to know if these are really personal pronouns or not but i thought they were. Shouldn't they be in bold also? If they are personal pronouns and there is a reason for not bolding them maybe they could be replaced with other words as it adds confusion. zorkerz (talk) 02:08, 27 March 2008 (UTC)

One

Isn't "one" also a personal pronoun? If it is, I find its absence from the article amusing because it is used frequently as a personal pronoun *in* the article. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 82.20.213.37 (talk) 23:11, 22 May 2008 (UTC)

"Usage" section: Unclear first sentence

"In English, it is standard to use personal pronouns explicitly even when the context already understood, or could easily be understood by reading the sentences that follow."

I've read the sentence quoted above several times; as far as I can tell it doesn't say anything meaningful. It certainly is grammatically incorrect, but the problem is deeper than that. Can someone who understands what the author was trying to say please rewrite it. Are they talking about when personal pronouns ARE used, or when they AREN'T used ("explicitly" sounds like using the original noun)? Are they talking about a situation where the context IS understood (so pronoun would work), or where it IS NOT understood?ToolmakerSteve (talk) 12:10, 5 July 2008 (UTC)

It means English is not a pro-drop language. - TAKASUGI Shinji (talk) 01:06, 6 July 2008 (UTC)

Usage for animals

What is the current guidelines when referring to animals. Should they have a personal pronoun in formal writing? I know PETA asked journalists to change their guidelines in favour of personal pronouns, but what is the standard "style guideline" in modern English usage? Jack (talk) 18:25, 4 December 2008 (UTC)

Merge discussion

The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section. A summary of the conclusions reached follows.

The result was don't merge into Grammatical person. -- ἀνυπόδητος (talk) 11:32, 23 October 2009 (UTC)

---

User:Frehley has proposed to merge Grammatical person and Personal pronoun.

• Oppose. Having separate pages for grammatical categories and for parts of speech is a good idea. We could as well merge Grammatical person with Verb, or Grammatical case with Personal pronoun. --ἀνυπόδητος (talk) 13:20, 20 September 2009 (UTC)
• Oppose Per Anypodetos. I think it has enough information in it to justify it having it's own page. Airplaneman ^talk 21:50, 21 September 2009 (UTC)
• Oppose Hard to take this proposal seriously since User:Frehley him/herself provides no arguments in favor of it. CapnPrep (talk) 02:50, 22 October 2009 (UTC)

The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

Definition

The opening definition -- "Personal pronouns are pronouns used as substitutes for proper or common nouns" -- does not seem adequate since the same could be said of, for example, "these" in "I'll take these", and yet "these" is (according to pronoun at least) not a personal pronoun. 86.134.72.86 (talk) 21:08, 9 November 2009 (UTC).

Wrong Slavic Examples

"Slavic languages have two different third-person genitive pronouns (one reflexive, one not)."

If I remember correctly, Slavic languages use the two different forms that are mentioned in the above sentence not only for the third person but across all the persons. At least this holds for Russian. Can anyone confirm that this holds for Serbian and other Slavic languages, too? --RokasT (talk) 23:10, 27 November 2009 (UTC)

Yes, the reflexive pronoun is used for all persons. But how this does make the examples wrong? CapnPrep (talk) 23:28, 27 November 2009 (UTC)

Order

Could anyone find a good refrence to the personal pronoun order? It seems in all language study to be standardised to I, you-masculine & you-feminine / you, he, she, we, you plural (possibly with masculine before feminine plural), they.

Is there a root to this convention?178.208.204.125 (talk) 20:04, 20 April 2011 (UTC) Wesley

Japanese gender-neutral third-person pronoun?

I've been speaking, reading, and writing Japanese for thirty years, and do not know what gender-neutral third-person pronoun is referred to in this article. For the most part, Japanese do not use third person pronouns in normal conversation. The third person is called by name or referred to as "that person" ("ano kata," あの方). This is why it's possible to talk about a third person at length without once giving a concrete hint as to the person's gender. Could it be this "ano kata" that is referred to here? Because that sounds like a stretch to me. Matt Thorn (talk) 08:27, 14 May 2014 (UTC)

Japanese does not have a "closed" pronoun system, the way Indo-European and Semitic languages do, and there are many forms in the language which can be used pronominally, and of course pronouns are often completely omitted. I think most or all words used as third person pronouns in Japanese are gender-nonspecific except kare and kanojo... AnonMoos (talk) 07:18, 22 March 2024 (UTC)

This article should be more Political Correct?

Personal pronouns can be whatever one desires. It shouldn't be contained to a few paragraphs that are set in stone like on Wikipedia. It's 2020 ffs -- Preceding unsigned comment added by 83.81.110.215 (talk) 18:10, 9 February 2020 (UTC)

It's mostly about technical linguistics and grammar... AnonMoos (talk) 07:18, 22 March 2024 (UTC)

Introducing confusion in the introduction!

I am no grammarian and came to this article looking for a gender pronoun explanation. My comment is that by using the contraction 'it's' in the initial example, a common confusion is being introduced on top of a confusing explanation! Why not just use 'It is a good idea. (pronoun and pro-form)' and 'It is raining. (pronoun but not pro-form)'? Thanks! -- Preceding unsigned comment added by Captkirksc (talk o contribs) 16:11, 23 January 2022 (UTC)

The uncontracted forms could be considered stilted or formal in many contexts. I'm not sure using contractions creates any real confusion... AnonMoos (talk) 07:21, 22 March 2024 (UTC)

'or to a person who does not identify as either a man or a woman'

An edit on the 4th of February 2023 modified the first paragraph under 'gender', appending the text 'or to a person who does not identify as either a man or a woman' to the end of the sentence discussing use of 'singular they' (along with making a couple of other minor changes). I wish to express criticism of the appropriateness of this change, but please do not misunderstand this as a disagreement with, or an attack upon, the 'gender-neutral movement' itself. That is not where I'm coming from.

The first paragraph includes a description of the long-standing and universally accepted fundamental rules of English grammar relating to gender (in summary from the text - 'he' for a man, 'she' for a woman' and 'singular they' for unknown/unspecified, along with a description of the use of 'it'). Notably there is an entire second paragraph following this one dedicated to discussing certain issues, including a specific mention of the contemporary 'gender neutral language movement'.

The addition to the description of fundamental rules made in the referenced edit, which is clearly connected to the contemporary movements pushing for greater use of gender neutral language and greater trans rights, is neither a long standing part of the grammatical rule set, nor a universally accepted one, yet the edit makes it look like it's both. I take issue with this from the point of view of factual correctness. People read these articles for many reasons and we should strive to avoid misinforming them. When I read this paragraph, this addition stood out to me as something that just did not belong there.

I have no issue with there being a mention or discussion, somewhere within this article, of gender neutral language or use of 'they' with respect to non-binary individuals, however it need to be done in the right way and the right place, avoiding misinforming readers as to what the grammar rules have long been and how universally accepted rules are. That first paragraph is just not the right place for it; The second is, and there's already a related bit of text there (which perhaps could be tweaked to more explicitly mention non-binary individuals).

I feel that this problematic edit needs to be reverted. In fact I did revert it, but then it was restored right back with a comment to "check the talk page regarding this change, thank you", yet no comment was left here for me to read...

It is worth noting that other related pages, such as `English_personal_pronouns`, do a somewhat better job of discussing this. 80.43.62.240 (talk) 08:58, 2 October 2023 (UTC)