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 ...

, a subject pronoun is a personal pronoun that is used as the

subject Subject ( la, subiectus "lying beneath") may refer to: Philosophy *''Hypokeimenon'', or ''subiectum'', in metaphysics, the "internal", non-objective being of a thing **Subject (philosophy), a being that has subjective experiences, subjective cons ...

of a verb. Subject pronouns are usually in the

nominative case In grammar, the nominative case (abbreviated ), subjective case, straight case or upright case is one of the grammatical cases of a noun or other part of speech, which generally marks the subject of a verb or (in Latin and formal variants of Engl ...

for languages with a nominative–accusative alignment pattern. On the other hand, a language with an ergative-absolutive pattern usually has separate subject pronouns for transitive and intransitive verbs: an

ergative case In grammar, the ergative case (abbreviated ) is the grammatical case that identifies the noun as the agent of a transitive verb in ergative–absolutive languages. Characteristics In such languages, the ergative case is typically marked (most ...

pronoun for transitive verbs and an

absolutive case In grammar, the absolutive case (abbreviated ) is the case of nouns in ergative–absolutive languages that would generally be the subjects of intransitive verbs or the objects of transitive verbs in the translational equivalents of nominative� ...

pronoun for transitive verbs. In

English English usually refers to: * English language * English people English may also refer to: Peoples, culture, and language * ''English'', an adjective for something of, from, or related to England ** English national ide ...

, the subject pronouns are ''I'', ''

you In Modern English, ''you'' is the second-person pronoun. It is grammatically plural, and was historically used only for the dative case, but in most modern dialects is used for all cases and numbers. History ''You'' comes from the Proto- ...

'', '' thou'', '' he'', ''

she She most commonly refers to: *She (pronoun), the third person singular, feminine, nominative case pronoun in modern English. She or S.H.E. may also refer to: Literature and films *'' She: A History of Adventure'', an 1887 novel by H. Rider Hagga ...

'', ''it'', ''

one 1 (one, unit, unity) is a number representing a single or the only entity. 1 is also a numerical digit and represents a single unit of counting or measurement. For example, a line segment of ''unit length'' is a line segment of length 1. I ...

'', '' we'', '' ye'', '' they'', ''who'' and ''

what What or WHAT may refer to: * What, an interrogative pronoun and adverb * "What?", one of the Five Ws used in journalism Film and television * ''What!'' (film) or ''The Whip and the Body'', a 1963 Italian film directed by Mario Bava * '' What ...

''. With the exception of ''you'', ''it'', ''one'' and ''what'', and in informal speech ''who'', Randolph Quirk,

Sidney Greenbaum Sidney Greenbaum (31 December 1929 – 28 May 1996) was a British scholar of the English language and of linguistics. He was Quain Professor of English language and literature at the University College London from 1983 to 1990 and Director ...

Geoffrey Leech Geoffrey Neil Leech FBA (16 January 1936 – 19 August 2014) was a specialist in English language and linguistics. He was the author, co-author, or editor of over 30 books and over 120 published papers. His main academic interests were English ...

, and Jan Svartvik, ''A Comprehensive Grammar of the English Language'' (London: Longman, 1985), pp. 367 and 370. the

object pronoun In linguistics, an object pronoun is a personal pronoun 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 Eng ...

s are different: i.e. ''me,'' ''thee'', ''him,'' ''her,'' ''us,'' ''you'' (objective case of ''ye'')'','' ''them'' and ''whom'' (see

English personal pronouns The English personal pronouns are a subset of English pronouns taking various forms according to grammatical number, number, grammatical person, person, grammatical case, case and natural gender. Modern English has very little inflection of nouns ...

). In some cases, the subject pronoun is not used for the logical subject. For example,

exceptional case marking Exceptional case-marking (ECM), in linguistics, is a phenomenon in which the subject of an embedded infinitival verb seems to appear in a superordinate clause and, if it is a pronoun, is unexpectedly marked with object case morphology (''him'' not ' ...

(ECM) constructions involve the subject of a

non-finite clause In linguistics, a non-finite clause is a dependent or embedded clause that represents a state or event in the same way no matter whether it takes place before, during, or after text production. In this sense, a non-finite dependent clause represe ...

which appears in the object form (e.g., ''I want him to go''.) In

colloquial speech Colloquialism (), also called colloquial language, everyday language or general parlance, is the linguistic style used for casual (informal) communication. It is the most common functional style of speech, the idiom normally employed in conversa ...

, a coordinated first person subject will often appear in the object form even in subject position (e.g., ''Me and James went to the store''.) This is corrected so often that it has led to cases of

hypercorrection In sociolinguistics, hypercorrection is non-standard use of language that results from the over-application of a perceived rule of language-usage prescription. A speaker or writer who produces a hypercorrection generally believes through a mi ...

, where the subject pronoun is used even in object position under coordination (e.g., ''Marie gave Susana and I a piece of cake.)

References

Personal pronouns {{ling-morph-stub

See also

References