What are personal pronouns?
Personal pronouns are grammatical words that represent the participants in a speech, whether they are people, animals or things.
The function of personal pronouns is to replace the names of the entities with grammatical persons. For example: “Mildred brought lunch” / “She brought lunch”.
In personal pronouns, the first person refers to the sender of the message; the second person refers to the receiver and the third person refers to what is spoken. For example: “I warned you: he is not to be trusted.”
There are two types or classes of personal pronouns : tonic personal pronouns and unstressed personal pronouns.
Tonic personal pronouns
Tonic personal pronouns are those that can function as a subject, as an attribute, or as a preposition term. They do not need to be accompanied by a verb, so they can be separated with subordinate phrases.
Tonic pronouns depending on the subject or attribute
| Singular | Plural | Examples (subject) | Examples (attribute) | |
| First person | me | we we | I will go to the party. We bet on change. |
We are responsible. |
| Second person | you you you | you you you | You will achieve your goals. You are very elegant. You are special. |
The best was you. |
| Third person | he she she | they they | She has arrived early. Do not worry about it. They can come. |
The problem is them. |
The pronouns “I”, “you” and “you” are common in terms of gender. The rest of the pronouns indicate both conditions: gender (feminine and masculine) and number.
Tonic pronouns as a preposition term.
| Singular | Plural | Examples | |
| First person | me with me | we we | An apple is enough for me. On the weekend you will go to the park with me. They look like us. |
| Second person | you with you | you you you | I bought this garment for you. We have thought of you. |
| Third person | he, she, it, yeah, I get | they they | He is beside himself. He brought his pet with him. |
Unstressed personal pronouns
Atonic pronouns are those that fulfill the function of direct or indirect complement. They are called unstressed because they lack phonic independence, that is, they require a verb to form an accent unit. They are also called clitics .
According to the way they are constructed, unstressed personal pronouns can be proclitical or enclitic.
The proclytic are those preceding the verb and written as a separate word, although dependent on this.
The enclitics are those who join the end of the verb to form a word. They are used when the verb appears in infinitive, gerund or imperative.
| Singular | Plural | Examples (proclitical) | Examples (enclitics) | |
| First person | I | us | I want to go on a trip. | Let’s get away. |
| Second person | tea | you | What did you think of the film? | You can sit down. Shut up |
| Third person | what | the | I suspected it from the beginning. | We were looking for them without success. |
