In
linguistics
Linguistics is the scientific study of language. The areas of linguistic analysis are syntax (rules governing the structure of sentences), semantics (meaning), Morphology (linguistics), morphology (structure of words), phonetics (speech sounds ...
, 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''). Personal pronouns may also take different f ...
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 pe ...
and
Early Modern English
Early Modern English (sometimes abbreviated EModEFor example, or EMnE) or Early New English (ENE) is the stage of the English language from the beginning of the Tudor period to the English Interregnum and Restoration, or from the transit ...
retained the
T–V distinction; 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 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 Standard English may be defined ...
, and in the
Scots language, 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
Spanish object pronouns are Spanish personal pronouns that take the function of the Object (grammar), object in the sentence. Object pronouns may be both clitic and non-clitic, with non-clitic forms carrying greater emphasis. When used as clitics, ...
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 system. English, for example, once had an extensive
declension system that specified distinct
accusative and
dative case ''forms'' for both nouns and pronouns. And after a
preposition
Adpositions are a part of speech, class of words used to express spatial or temporal relations (''in, under, towards, behind, ago'', etc.) or mark various thematic relations, semantic roles (''of, for''). The most common adpositions are prepositi ...
, a noun or pronoun could be in either of these cases, or in the
genitive or
instrumental
An instrumental or instrumental song is music without any vocals, although it might include some inarticulate vocals, such as shouted backup vocals in a big band setting. Through Semantic change, semantic widening, a broader sense of the word s ...
cases. 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.
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 bu ...
*
Subject (grammar)
A subject is one of the two main parts of a Sentence (linguistics), sentence (the other being the Predicate (grammar), predicate, which modifies the subject).
For the simple Sentence (linguistics), sentence ''John runs'', ''John'' is the subject, ...
References
{{lexical categories, state=collapsed
Personal pronouns