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The intensive pronouns (such as myself, yourself, herself, ourselves, themselves) consist of a
personal pronoun plus self or selves and emphasize a noun. (I myself don't know the answer.) It is
possible (but rather unusual) for an intensive pronoun to precede the noun it refers to. (Myself, I
don't believe a word he says.)
Reflexive Pronouns
The reflexive pronouns (which have the same forms as the intensive pronouns) indicate that the
sentence subject also receives the action of the verb. (Students who cheat on this quiz are only
hurting themselves. You paid yourself a million dollars? She encouraged herself to do well.)
What this means is that whenever there is a reflexive pronoun in a sentence there must be a
person to whom that pronoun can "reflect." In other words, the sentence "Please hand that book
to myself" would be incorrect because there is no "I" in that sentence for the "myself" to reflect
to (and we would use "me" instead of "myself"). A sentence such as "I gave that book to myself
for Christmas" might be silly, but it would be correct.
Be alert to a tendency to use reflexive pronoun forms (ending in -self) where they are neither
appropriate nor necessary. The inappropriate reflexive form has a wonderful name: the
untriggered reflexive. "Myself" tends to sound weightier, more formal, than little ol' me or I, so it
has a way of sneaking into sentences where it doesn't belong.
When pronouns are combined, the reflexive will take either the first person
The indefinite pronoun (see above) one has its own reflexive form ("One must have faith in
oneself."), but the other indefinite pronouns use either himself or themselves as reflexives. (There
is an entire page on the pronoun one.) It is probably better to pluralize and avoid the clumsy
himself or herself construction.
Interrogative Pronouns
The interrogative pronouns (who/which/what) introduce questions. (What is that? Who will help
me? Which do you prefer?) Which is generally used with more specific reference than what. If
we're taking a quiz and I ask "Which questions give you the most trouble?", I am referring to
specific questions on that quiz. If I ask "What questions give you most trouble"? I could be
asking what kind of questions on that quiz (or what kind of question, generically, in general)
gives you trouble. The interrogative pronouns also act as Determiners: It doesn't matter which
beer you buy. He doesn't know whose car he hit. In this determiner role, they are sometimes
called interrogative adjectives.
Like the relative pronouns, the interrogative pronouns introduce noun clauses, and like the
relative pronouns, the interrogative pronouns play a subject role in the clauses they introduce:
Reciprocal Pronouns
The reciprocal pronouns are each other and one another. They are convenient forms for
combining ideas. If Bob gave Alicia a book for Christmas and Alicia gave Bob a book for
Christmas, we can say that they gave each other books (or that they gave books to each other).
If more than two people are involved (let's say a whole book club), we would say that they gave
one another books. This rule (if it is one) should be applied circumspectly. It's quite possible for
the exchange of books within this book club, for example, to be between individuals, making
"each other" just as appropriate as "one another."
Reciprocal pronouns can also take possessive forms: