Nouns represent person
place or thing, including abstractions.
Nelson Mandela, book, compost, humor, confusion, exasperation are
nouns. There are a potentially infinite
number of nouns as new ones are being invented all the time. English nouns are inflected (changed in form
or declined) only to show plural and possessive qualities. "Book" becomes "books"
in plural and "book's" would indicate possession as in "the
book's jacket."
Only proper nouns, the name
of a place or person, are capitalized: Ferdinand, Severus, Rupert, Sir Thomas
Crapper, etc.
Pronouns take the place of
nouns. There are only a few of these
and you already know them all. Who
(whom in object case), what, which, that, each, are examples of general
pronouns. Apart from who, whose
object form is whom and possessive is whose, only the personal
pronouns are declined extensively.
Declension is used to indicate subject, object, or possessive case
according to how they are used in the sentence and depending upon the number,
person, and gender of the noun represented by the pronoun. Here is a chart.
number |
person |
gender* |
Cases of Personal Pronouns |
possessive |
|||
subject |
object |
possessive |
reflexive |
||||
singular |
1st |
m/f |
I |
me |
mine |
myself |
my |
2nd |
m/f |
you |
you |
yours |
yourself |
your |
|
3rd |
m |
he |
him |
his |
himself |
his |
|
f |
she |
her |
hers |
herself |
her |
||
n |
it |
it |
its |
itself |
its |
||
plural |
1st |
m/f |
we |
us |
ours |
ourselves |
our |
2nd |
m/f |
you |
you |
yours |
yourselves |
your |
|
3rd |
m/f/n |
they |
them |
theirs |
themselves |
their |
* m=masculine f=feminine
n=neuter