Personal Pronouns, Possessive Pronouns, and Reflexive Pronouns

Personal Pronouns

a pronoun having a definite person or thing as an antecedent and functioning grammatically in the same way as the noun that it replaces. In English, the personal pronouns include I, you, he, she, it, we, and they, and are inflected for case.

• Personal Pronouns as Subject and Object Example.

Subject Pronouns

Subject pronouns replace nouns that are the subject of their clause. In the 3rd person, subject pronouns are often used to avoid repetition of the subject’s name.

Examples

•  I am 16.
• You seem lost. 
• Jim is angry, and he wants Sally to apologize.

Object Pronouns

Object pronouns are used to replace nouns that are the direct or indirect object of a clause.

Examples

• Mark can’t find it.
• Don’t be angry with us.  
• Tell them to hurry up! 

 

Possessive Pronouns

A possessive pronoun is a pronoun that can take the place of a noun phrase to show ownership (as in “This phone is mine“).

The weak possessives (also called possessive determiners) function as determiners in front of nouns (as in “My phone is broken”). The weak possessives are my, your, his, her, its, our, and their.

In contrast, the strong (or absolute) possessive pronouns stand on their own: mine, yours, his, hers, its, ours, and theirs. The strong possessive is a type of independent genitive.

A possessive pronoun never takes an apostrophe.

• Possessive Pronouns as Subject and Object Example

Possessive Adjectives (Determiners)
Possessive adjectives are not pronouns, but rather determiners. It is useful to learn them at the same time as pronouns, however, because they are similar in form to the possessive pronouns. Possessive adjectives function as adjectives, so they appear before the noun they modify. They do not replace a noun as pronouns do.

Examples

• The cat broke its leg.
• This is our house. 
• Where is their school? 
• Possessive Pronouns

Possessive pronouns replace possessive nouns as either the subject or the object of a clause. Because the noun being replaced doesn’t appear in the sentence, it must be clear from the context.

Examples

• This bag is mine.
• Yours is not blue. 
• That bag looks like his.

Reflexive Pronoun

A reflexive pronoun is a type of pronoun that is preceded by the adverb, adjective,pronoun, or noun to which it refers, so long as that antecedent is located within the same clause.In English grammar, a reflexive pronoun indicates that the person who is realizing the action of the verb is also the recipient of the action. While this might seem strange at first glance, the following examples of reflexive pronouns and the accompanying list of reflexive pronouns will help you gain thorough understanding. In fact, you will probably notice that you yourself use reflexive pronouns frequently when speaking or writing.
Examples
In the following examples of reflexive pronouns, the reflexive pronoun in each sentence is italicized.

• I was in a hurry, so I washed the car myself.
• You’re going to have to drive yourself to school today.
• He wanted to impress her, so he baked a cake himself.
• Jennifer does chores herself because she doesn’t trust others to do them right.
• That car is in a class all by itself.
• We don’t have to go out; we can fix dinner ourselves.
• You are too young to go out by yourselves.
• The actors saved the local theatre money by making costumes themselves.

Source:

http://www.collinsdictionary.com/dictionary/english/personal-pronoun
http://www.edufind.com/english-grammar/pronouns/
http://grammar.about.com/od/pq/g/posspronterm.htm
http://www.gingersoftware.com/content/grammar-rules/reflexive-pronouns/