The Pronoun: Personal & Possessive – Lesson 5 (Grammar)

Beginning Grammar — a complete, classical course in English grammar and composition, taught straight through from the ground up. In Lesson 5, we take up the pronoun — the word that stands in for a noun — together with the two adjective elements that travel with it: the possessive and the appositive. In this lesson: • The Pronoun — a word used instead of a noun, so we say "John put his hat on his head," not "John put John's hat on John's head" • The Possessive — a noun or pronoun used to modify a noun different in meaning from itself; it need not show ownership — it may show kind ("a boys' school") or authorship ("Ray's Algebra") • Forming the possessive — singular adds 's ("John's, Moses's"); a plural ending in s takes the apostrophe alone ("the ladies' car"); a plural not ending in s adds 's ("the men's, the children's"); and a pronoun's possessive never takes an apostrophe (its, hers, ours — never "it's") • The Appositive — a word placed beside a noun to denote the same object ("Milton the poet"); set off by commas unless it is unmodified or modified only by "the" • Adjective elements — adjectives, articles, possessives, and appositives all modify a noun, and each attaches to its own noun on the sentence diagram • Personal Pronouns & the three persons — First (the speaker: I, we), Second (spoken to: you), Third (spoken of: he, she, it, they); plus the reflexive forms in -self ("He hurt himself") • The three cases — Nominative (he — subject or predicate), Possessive (his — before a noun), Objective (him — the object) • Possessive case vs. possessive pronoun — "his book" is a personal pronoun in the possessive case, doing an adjective element's work; "the book is his" is a possessive pronoun that stands alone • Two kinds of pronoun — the Personal pronoun (represents a noun, shows person, takes three cases) and the Possessive pronoun (mine, hers, ours, theirs — standing for both the possessor and the thing possessed) • Cautions — "It is I," not "It is me"; avoid false forms like "his'n" and "your'n"; put "you" first and "I" last • Diagramming the pronoun — as subject, predicate, object, or — in the possessive — an adjective element hung beneath the noun it modifies Based on Harvey's Elementary Grammar & Composition. Lesson 1:    • Foundations: What Language Is Made Of – Le...   Chapters 0:00 Lesson 4 quiz review 5:21 The pronoun 8:37 Practice: finding pronouns 11:27 Adjective elements 13:43 The possessive 16:36 Apostrophe rules 19:24 Practice: writing possessives 21:23 The appositive 24:55 Practice: finding appositives 26:01 Diagramming adjective elements 27:59 Personal pronouns and the three persons 31:37 Possessive pronouns 33:22 Possessive pronoun or possessive case 36:19 Practice: pronoun or case? 44:01 Diagramming and usage rules 46:03 Recap and review questions