pronën

Pronouns are words that substitute for nouns or noun phrases, allowing speakers to avoid repetition. The term comes from Latin pronomen, meaning in place of a noun. Pronouns are a central part of grammar in many languages and can signal person, number, gender, and case, depending on the language system.

Major categories include personal pronouns (I, you, he, she, we, they), demonstratives (this, that, these, those), interrogatives (who, what, which), relatives (who, whom, which, that), possessives (mine, yours) and possessive determiners (my, your, his, her, its, our, their). Reflexive pronouns (myself, yourself, themselves) express action returned to the subject, while reciprocal pronouns (each other, one another) describe mutual relationships. Indefinite pronouns (someone, anything, nobody) refer to non-specific referents.

Syntax and morphology of pronouns vary widely. In many languages pronouns mark person and number and may show gender or case; they can function as subjects, objects, or possessives. Some languages require explicit pronouns, while others permit dropping them when the verb or context already encodes the subject (pro-drop). In some systems, pronouns attach as clitics to verbs or nouns.

Pronouns contribute to discourse coherence by facilitating coreference and anaphora: a pronoun points back to a previously mentioned noun. They also carry nuances of formality, emphasis, and focus. Across languages, the size and shape of pronoun systems differ: some have many distinct forms for gender and number, others few; some encode politeness or inclusivity strategies in pronoun choice.

Understanding pronouns involves looking at syntax, morphology, semantics, and pragmatics within a given language.