In the most simple terms, a pronoun is a word which takes the position of a noun. One of the most commonly recognised forms of the pronoun are names of people, for example, John, Jill, Mary or Peter. However, a pronoun could also be one of the following words:

• He/she
• It
• They
• Me
• Himself
• Somebody/everybody/anybody
• Many
• Each
• Few
• Whoever/who

A pronoun is used instead of a noun or noun phrase in a sentence. A pronoun may take place of the name of a person, place or thing.

Pronoun examples: I, me, we, they, you, he, she, it, yours, himself, ourselves, its, my, that, this, those, us, who, whom…

There are many more examples of pronouns, and you might think of them as pointing towards possession. As we mentioned, the pronoun is used as a way of replacing a noun, take a look at the following sentence:

• The couch is large, the cupboard is heavy.

There is no need to use the word couch in the second part of the sentence, therefore it could be replaced with a pronoun now that we recognise what item is being talked about, take a look at the modified sentence which uses the pronoun it.

• The couch is large, it is heavy.