Gillian Dawson had never been very aware of the people around her.' (Ronald Carter and Michael McCarthy, Cambridge Grammar of English.Definition of pronoun. Such uses are common in openings to written stories: She was walking along a tree-lined suburban road, unaware of what was about to befall her. Occasionally a personal pronoun may be used to refer forward ( cataphorically).

'Personal pronouns are most typically used for backward ( anaphoric) reference: The manager phoned me back. Mary told John that she was leaving home. The noun phrase in the previous conversation or written text which refers to the same person or thing as the personal pronoun is called the pronoun's ' antecedent.' In each of the examples below, the first item is most naturally interpreted as the antecedent of the later personal pronoun, also.

Being definite, 3rd person personal pronouns are normally only used when the person or thing they refer to has already been mentioned in the conversation or written text. Then truly will London be glorious again.' 'ake the board of directors of British Telecom go out and personally track down every last red phone box that they sold off to be used as shower stalls and garden sheds in far-flung corners of the globe, make them put them all back, and then sack them-no, kill them.(from a letter read by the White Rabbit in Alice's Adventures in Wonderland by Lewis Carroll, 1865) As she did each one I took it and gave the signature a look.'

' I got the two carbons from a drawer and took them to her.'Among naturalists, when a bird is seen well beyond its normal range, it is called an accidental.'.' They went to the museum, where he showed Bee her ancestors. ' She had driven her father into town, stopping along the way as he pointed out sights, showed her where he used to play as a child, told her stories he hadn't thought about for years.'From the moment I picked up your book until I laid it down, I was convulsed with laughter.'Always forgive your enemies nothing annoys them so much.'.(Maya Angelou, I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings. 'Daddy Bailey invited me to spend the summer with him in southern California, and I was jumpy with excitement.'.

What is a pronoun