In
linguistics
Linguistics is the scientific study of human language. It is called a scientific study because it entails a comprehensive, systematic, objective, and precise analysis of all aspects of language, particularly its nature and structure. Linguis ...
, an object pronoun is a
personal pronoun
Personal pronouns are pronouns that are associated primarily with a particular grammatical person – first person (as ''I''), second person (as ''you''), or third person (as ''he'', ''she'', ''it'', ''they''). Personal pronouns may also take di ...
that is used typically as a
grammatical object: the direct or indirect object of a verb, or the object of a preposition. Object pronouns contrast with
subject pronouns. Object pronouns in English take the ''
objective case'', sometimes called the ''oblique case'' or ''object case''.
[ Randolph Quirk, Sidney Greenbaum, Geoffrey Leech, and Jan Svartvik, ''A Comprehensive Grammar of the English Language'' (London: Longman, 1985), p. 337.]
For example, the English object pronoun ''me'' is found in "They see me" (direct object), "He's giving me my book" (indirect object), and "Sit with me" (object of a preposition); this contrasts with the subject pronoun in "I see them," "I am getting my book," and "I am sitting here."
English
The English personal and interrogative pronouns have the following subject and object forms:
Archaic second person forms
Historically,
Middle English
Middle English (abbreviated to ME) is a form of the English language that was spoken after the Norman conquest of 1066, until the late 15th century. The English language underwent distinct variations and developments following the Old English ...
and
Early Modern English
Early Modern English or Early New English (sometimes abbreviated EModE, EMnE, or ENE) is the stage of the English language from the beginning of the Tudor period to the English Interregnum and Restoration, or from the transition from Midd ...
retained the
T–V distinction
The T–V distinction is the contextual use of different pronouns that exists in some languages and serves to convey formality or familiarity. Its name comes from the Latin pronouns '' tu'' and '' vos''. The distinction takes a number of forms ...
; the
second person pronoun had separate singular/familiar and plural/formal forms with subject and object forms of both. In standard modern forms of English, all second person forms have been reduced to simply "you". These forms are still retained (sometimes partially) in some dialects of
Northern English,
Scottish English
Scottish English ( gd, Beurla Albannach) is the set of varieties of the English language spoken in Scotland. The transregional, standardised variety is called Scottish Standard English or Standard Scottish English (SSE). Scottish Standa ...
, and in the
Scots language
Scots ( endonym: ''Scots''; gd, Albais, ) is an Anglic language variety in the West Germanic language family, spoken in Scotland and parts of Ulster in the north of Ireland (where the local dialect is known as Ulster Scots). Most commo ...
, a Germanic language closely related to English which diverged from it during the Early Modern period.
Other languages
In some languages the ''direct'' object pronoun and the ''indirect'' object pronoun have separate forms. For example, in the
Spanish object pronoun system, ''direct object'': Lo mandaron a la escuela (They sent him to school) and ''indirect object'': Le mandaron una carta (They sent him a letter). Other languages divide object pronouns into a larger variety of classes.
On the other hand, many languages, for example Persian, do not have distinct object pronouns: ''Man Farsi balad-am'' (I can speak
Persian). ''Man ra mishenasad.'' (He knows me).
History
Object pronouns, in languages where they are distinguished from subject pronouns, are typically a vestige of an older
case
Case or CASE may refer to:
Containers
* Case (goods), a package of related merchandise
* Cartridge case or casing, a firearm cartridge component
* Bookcase, a piece of furniture used to store books
* Briefcase or attaché case, a narrow box to ...
system. English, for example, once had an extensive
declension
In linguistics, declension (verb: ''to decline'') is the changing of the form of a word, generally to express its syntactic function in the sentence, by way of some inflection. Declensions may apply to nouns, pronouns, adjectives, adverbs, and ...
system that specified distinct
accusative
The accusative case (abbreviated ) of a noun is the grammatical case used to mark the direct object of a transitive verb.
In the English language, the only words that occur in the accusative case are pronouns: 'me,' 'him,' 'her,' 'us,' and ‘the ...
and
dative
In grammar, the dative case (abbreviated , or sometimes when it is a core argument) is a grammatical case used in some languages to indicate the recipient or beneficiary of an action, as in "Maria Jacobo potum dedit", Latin for "Maria gave Jacob ...
case ''forms'' for both nouns and pronouns. And after a
preposition
Prepositions and postpositions, together called adpositions (or broadly, in traditional grammar, simply prepositions), are a class of words used to express spatial or temporal relations (''in'', ''under'', ''towards'', ''before'') or mark various ...
, a noun or pronoun could be in either of these cases, or in the
genitive
In grammar, the genitive case (abbreviated ) is the grammatical case that marks a word, usually a noun, as modifying another word, also usually a noun—thus indicating an attributive relationship of one noun to the other noun. A genitive can ...
or
instrumental
An instrumental is a recording normally without any vocals, although it might include some inarticulate vocals, such as shouted backup vocals in a big band setting. Through semantic widening, a broader sense of the word song may refer to inst ...
case. With the exception of the genitive (the
"apostrophe-s" form), in nouns this system disappeared entirely, while in personal pronouns it collapsed into a single case, covering the roles of both accusative and dative, as well as all instances after a preposition. That is, the new oblique (object) case came to be used for the object of either a verb or a preposition, contrasting with the genitive, which links two nouns.
For a discussion of the use of historically object pronouns in subject position in English (e.g. "Jay and me will arrive later"), see the article on
English personal pronouns
The English personal pronouns are a subset of English pronouns taking various forms according to number, person, case and natural gender. Modern English has very little inflection of nouns or adjectives, to the point where some authors descr ...
.
See also
*
Object (grammar)
In linguistics, an object is any of several types of arguments. In subject-prominent, nominative-accusative languages such as English, a transitive verb typically distinguishes between its subject and any of its objects, which can include but ...
*
Subject (grammar)
The subject in a simple English sentence such as ''John runs'', ''John is a teacher'', or ''John drives a car'', is the person or thing about whom the statement is made, in this case ''John''. Traditionally the subject is the word or phrase whi ...
References
{{lexical categories, state=collapsed
Personal pronouns