Pronouns

What words can take the place of nouns in sentences? Read the following folktale.

Juan Gathers Guavas


One day Juan’s father sent him to get some ripe guavas, for a number of the neighbors had come in and he wanted to give them something to eat.

Juan went to the guava bushes and ate all the fruit he could hold, and then he decided to play a joke on his father’s guests instead of giving them a feast of guavas. A wasp’s nest hung nearby. With some difficulty he succeeded in taking it down and putting it into a tight basket that he had brought for the fruit. He hastened home and gave the basket to his father, and then as he left the room where the guests were seated he closed the door and fastened it.

As soon as Juan’s father opened the basket the wasps flew over the room; and when the people found the door locked they fought to get out of the windows. After a while Juan opened the door, and when he saw the swollen faces of the people, he cried.

“What fine, rich guavas you must have had! They have made you all so fat!”

Study the sentence taken from the folktale and tell what the boxed words refer to in the sentence. What part of speech is it?

Juan went to the guava bushes and ate all the fruit he could hold, and then he decided to play a joke on his father’s guests instead of giving them a feast of guavas.

The words he and his are pronouns. Pronouns are a part of speech that take the place of nouns or noun phrases. Nouns and pronouns share similar uses in a sentence. But first, review the uses of a noun in a sentence.

A noun can both be the subject of a sentence and the object of a verb or a preposition. Because nouns have many uses in sentences, there are also many types of pronouns. Pronouns also have singular and plural forms.