The Goal of Error Analysis

sentence. The name should not be taken too literally: one such pronoun, it cannot refer to persons, whereas another, they, may but need not so refer. 30 A personal pronoun, whether singular or plural, can be used either as the subject or the object of a verb. The table below shows the various forms of personal pronoun: Singular Subject Object after a preposition I am here You go there He she it is here He writes to me. He likes you. Bring him her it here. Plural We are here You may leave They will go It is for us. He will buy it for you. I like him. 31 There are four case forms of personal pronoun to indicate different sentence function: Subjective case, objective case, the possessive case, and reflexive case. Personal pronouns change their form for person First, second and third, for case subject, object, possessive, number singular, plural and gender masculine, feminine, neuter, except for reflexive pronoun making the same kind of changes. Form of Personal Pronoun Subject Object Possessive Adjective Possessive Pronoun Reflexive Singular I You He She It Me You Him Her It My Your His Her Its Mine Yours His hers Myself Yourself Himself Herself Itself Plural We You They Us You Them Our Your Their Ours Yours Theirs Ourselves Yourselves Themselves 30 Mark S. Lc Tourneau, English Grammar, Weber State University, 2001 harcourt , p. 66 31 J.B. Alter, M.A. Corrective English for certificate students, Melbourne :Times Educational, 1980. P. 54

2. Type of Personal Pronoun

a. Subject Pronoun According to Teresa, a pronoun in the subject group I, she, he, we, they. may be used in two ways: 32 1. As the subject of a verb e. g; He is my brother He is the subject of the verb is We girls gave a party we is the subject of the verb gave He is taller than I The sentence is not written out in full, it means .He is taller than I am I is the subject of the verb am. She plays as well as he it means .she plays as well as he does. He is the subject of the verb does. 2. As a word that means the same as the subject. e. g; That boy in the blue jeans is he He is the same as the subject boy. It was she all right she is the same as the subject it. Therefore the pronoun from of the subject group is used. Personal pronouns appearing after the verb be usually for identification of a person take subject form in formal English: it is I, it is we, although in grammatically correct but many native speakers are not comfortable with those expression and modern usage English allows some exception for that rule: it is me and it is us widely used particularly in informal speech. b. Object Pronoun Object pronoun appears after verbs or after preposition with a certain type of verb preposition combination, a pronoun object appears between the verb and preposition, example calls him up. Object pronoun or non-subject group me, him, her, us, them, and you can be used in four ways: 1. As direct object of verb: e. g : They invited me me is the direct object of verb invited 2. As indirect object of verb 32 Teresa, The least you should know about English Basic writing skill, Macomb Illinois : Holt, Rinehart and Winston, 1977, P. 106.