What are pronouns in English grammar?

Pronouns are words that take the place of a noun. They act on behalf of nouns.

For example, instead of using the proper noun "Milly" in a sentence, the feminine pronoun "she" can be used in its place.

"Milly is a good artist." — "She is a good artist."

More examples:

"Marcus teaches at a nearby university." — "He teaches at a nearby university."

"Miles and Charles are students." — "They are students."

"Earth is the third planet in the solar system." — "It is the third planet in the solar system."

There is nothing wrong with using their names. It always depends on the context or what the person you talk to knows. For example, if the person you talk to knows Milly or Marcus and understands that you are talking about them, you can use pronouns.

Now, the nouns that pronouns replace are called antecedents.

examples:

"Milly is a good artist." — "She is a good artist."

—The antecedent of the pronoun 'she' is the noun 'Milly'.

"Miles and Charles are students." — "They are students."

—The antecedent of the pronoun 'they' is the nouns 'Miles' and 'Charles'.

Note: The use of pronouns depends entirely on their antecedents. If the noun is singular and feminine, a feminine pronoun is used. If the noun is plural, a plural pronoun is also used, just like in the examples above.

Pronouns are used to create natural and pleasant writing or speech. No one wants to read or listen to a redundant and choppy sentence.

Example:

"Mark is a top student in Mark's school."

Reading the sentence makes one question: "Are there two Marks in the sentence?"

If there is only one Mark, then the sentence sounds redundant.

Pronouns are here to rescue.

In substitution for the second Mark, the masculine, third-person, possessive pronoun 'his' can be used.

Example:

"Mark is a top student in his school."

Pronouns often replace nouns that have already been mentioned. In this example, since 'Mark' is introduced as the subject, we can use pronouns instead of repeating his name in later parts of the sentence.

You can replace "Marks" with pronouns if the sentence before has already mentioned them.

Example:

"Mark is smart. He is a top student in his school."

The antecedent has already been mentioned in the previous sentence. Therefore, there is no need to repeat the name in the next sentence, so pronouns are used instead.

Click here to learn more about the functions of Pronouns.