A Pronoun is a word standing instead of a Noun, as its Substitute or Representative.
In the Pronoun are to be considered the Person, Number, Gender and Case.
There are Three Persons which may be the Subject of any discourse: first, the Person who speaks may speak of himself; secondly, he may speak of the Person to whom he addresses himself; thirdly, he may speak of some other Person.
These are called, respectively, the First, Second, and Third, Persons: and are expressed by the Pronouns I, Thou, He.
As the Speakers, the Persons spoken to, and the Persons spoken of, may be many, so each of these Persons hath the Plural Number; We, Ye, They.
The Persons speaking and spoken to are supposed to be present, from which and other circumstances their Sex is commonly known, and needs not to be marked by a distinction of Gender in their Pronouns: but the Person spoken of being absent and in many respects unknown, it is necessary that it should be marked by a distinction of Gender; at least when some particular Person is spoken of, who ought to be more distinctly marked: accordingly the Pronoun Singular of the Third Person hath the Three Genders, He, She, It.
Pronouns have Three Cases; the Nominative; the Genitive, or Possessive; like Nouns; and moreover a Case, which follows the Verb Active, or the Preposition, expressing the Object of an Action, or of a Relation. It answers to the Oblique Cases in Latin; and may be properly enough called the Objective Case.
PRONOUNS;
according to their Persons, Numbers, Cases, and Genders.
PERSONS.
| 1. | 2. | 3. | 1. | 2. | 3. |
| Singular. | Plural. | ||||
| I, | Thou, | He; | We, | Ye or You, | They. |