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In linguistics and grammar, a pronoun (for example you and they in English) is a pro-form that substitutes for a noun or noun phrase with or without a determiner. The replaced phrase is the antecedent of the pronoun. A pronoun used for the item questioned for in a question is called an interrogative pronoun.
For example, in the sentence "John gave the coat to Alice." All three nouns in the sentence can be replaced by pronouns: "He gave it to her." If the coat, John, and Alice have been previously mentioned, the listener will be able to deduce what the pronouns he, it and her refer to, and therefore understand the meaning of the sentence.
Common types of pronouns found in the world's languages include:
Ordinary English has seven personal pronouns: first-person singular (I), first-person plural (we), second-person (you), third-person singular masculine (he), third-person singular feminine (she), third-person singular neuter (it), and third-person plural (they). Each pronoun has a number of forms: a subjective case form (I/we/etc.), used when it's the subject of a finite verb; an objective case form (me/us/etc.), used when it's the object of verb or of a preposition; two possessive case forms (my/our/etc. and mine/ours/etc.), used when it's the possessor of another noun — one that's used as a determiner, and one that's used as a pronoun or a predicate adjective; and a reflexive form (myself/ourselves/etc.), which replaces the objective-case form in referring to the same entity as the subject. That said, the different pronouns, and the different forms of the pronouns, often have overlapping functions.