What Are Pronouns?: WASSCE English Language

Imagine a paragraph written without pronouns:

Aminata woke up at six. Aminata washed Aminata's face, ate Aminata's breakfast, and packed Aminata's bag. Then Aminata walked to school with Aminata's brother. Aminata's brother is younger than Aminata. Aminata's brother is in Form 3, and Aminata is in Form 5.

Nobody writes like that. The repetition is unbearable. The fix is to replace some of those Aminatas with pronouns — short words like she, her, hers, they, we — that stand in for nouns we have already mentioned. Apply pronouns to that paragraph and it becomes natural:

Aminata woke up at six. She washed her face, ate her breakfast, and packed her bag. Then she walked to school with her brother. He is younger than she is. He is in Form 3, and she is in Form 5.

The meaning is the same. The pronouns just make the writing readable. That is what every pronoun does: it stands in for a noun, so we do not have to repeat the noun over and over.

This lesson builds the foundation for the six lessons that follow. We cover what a pronoun is, the all-important concept of the antecedent, the eight families of pronouns you will study across this topic, and the three rules that every pronoun must obey. By the end you will see the noun work from Topic 2 from a new angle — and you will be ready to handle the rules and traps that follow.

Definition

A pronoun is a word that takes the place of a noun (or a noun phrase) in a sentence. The pronoun avoids repetition and keeps writing smooth. Common pronouns include I, you, he, she, it, we, they, me, him, her, us, them, my, mine, your, yours, his, hers, ours, theirs, this, that, these, those, who, whom, whose, which, what, anyone, everyone, no one, something.

The antecedent — the noun a pronoun replaces

This single idea is the most important in the entire topic. The noun that a pronoun stands in for is called its antecedent — literally, the thing that comes before.

Aminata took her bag. — her is a pronoun; Aminata is the antecedent.
The students forgot their homework. — their is a pronoun; the students is the antecedent.
The dog wagged its tail. — its is a pronoun; the dog is the antecedent.

Every well-formed pronoun has a clear antecedent. If a reader cannot tell which noun the pronoun refers to, the writing is broken.

❌ When Aminata met Mariama, she gave her a book. — who gave whom? Both Aminata and Mariama could be she or her.
✓ When Aminata met Mariama, Aminata gave her a book. — now her clearly refers to Mariama.

The antecedent does not have to come right before the pronoun. It can be in an earlier sentence, as long as it stays the most recent matching noun.

Foday was tired. He had been working since dawn. — He in the second sentence refers back to Foday in the first.

Sometimes the antecedent comes after the pronoun. In that case the pronoun is read forward:

Because he was tired, Foday went to bed early. — he points forward to Foday.

We will return to the antecedent concept again and again. Almost every pronoun rule comes down to: does the pronoun match its antecedent properly?

The eight families of pronouns

English has many pronouns, but they sort into eight families. We will study each in turn across this topic; this is the overview.

Family	Examples	Function
Personal	I, you, he, she, it, we, they, me, him, her, us, them	Refer to specific people or things by their grammatical role
Possessive	my, mine, your, yours, his, her, hers, its, our, ours, their, theirs	Show ownership
Reflexive	myself, yourself, himself, herself, itself, ourselves, yourselves, themselves	Refer back to the subject of the sentence
Intensive	same forms as reflexive	Emphasise a noun
Demonstrative	this, that, these, those	Point to a specific thing
Interrogative	who, whom, whose, which, what	Ask questions
Relative	who, whom, whose, which, that	Introduce relative clauses
Indefinite	someone, anyone, everyone, no one, something, nothing, all, some, many, few, both, either, neither	Refer to non-specific people or things

Each family has its own rules. Some words appear in two families (who is both interrogative and relative; his is both possessive adjective and possessive pronoun). Context tells you which job the word is doing in a particular sentence.

In Sierra Leone

A single Saturday morning in Freetown uses pronouns from almost every family:

Aminata woke up before her sisters. She made herself a quick breakfast and looked around the kitchen. Who had left the dishes from last night? Mariama, maybe. That would explain why the sink was full. Aminata called out, but nobody answered. Everyone was still asleep. This was the morning she had been waiting for — finally, some peace and quiet to revise.

Pronouns used:

she, her — personal
herself — reflexive
who — interrogative
that, this — demonstrative
nobody, everyone, some — indefinite

Every pronoun has an antecedent or a clear referent: she and her point to Aminata; herself points to Aminata again; that points to the dishes; this points to the morning. Even nobody and everyone implicitly refer to the people in the house.

The three rules every pronoun must obey

Every pronoun must agree with its antecedent in three ways: number, person, and gender. Get one wrong and the sentence breaks.

Rule 1 — Number

A singular antecedent takes a singular pronoun. A plural antecedent takes a plural pronoun.

✓ The boy lost his pen. (singular boy → singular his)
✓ The boys lost their pens. (plural boys → plural their)
❌ The boy lost their pen. (singular antecedent, plural pronoun — wrong)
❌ The boys lost his pen. (plural antecedent, singular pronoun — wrong)

The rule sounds easy. It becomes hard with indefinite pronouns (everyone, anybody, each), with collective nouns (the team, the committee), and with sentences where a long phrase comes between the antecedent and the pronoun. We will tackle each of these in later lessons.

Rule 2 — Person

Pronouns come in three persons:

First person — the speaker: I, me, my, mine, we, us, our, ours
Second person — the listener: you, your, yours
Third person — anyone or anything else: he, she, it, they, him, her, them, his, hers, its, their, theirs

A pronoun must stay in the same person as its antecedent.

❌ When a student prepares for WAEC, you must revise daily. — a student is third person; you is second person. Mismatch.
✓ When a student prepares for WAEC, he or she must revise daily. — both third person.
✓ When you prepare for WAEC, you must revise daily. — both second person.

This is called shift in person, and it is one of the most common errors in WAEC essays.

Rule 3 — Gender

When the antecedent is a specific person, the pronoun must match its gender.

Aminata took her bag. (feminine)
Foday took his bag. (masculine)
The dog wagged its tail. (neuter — for animals and things)

When the antecedent could be either male or female, traditional English uses he or she, his or her. Modern English increasingly accepts the singular they for this purpose:

✓ Each student should bring his or her textbook. — traditional, accepted by WAEC.
✓ Each student should bring their textbook. — modern, also accepted.

WAEC accepts both, but the his or her form is still the safer choice in formal essays.

Worked example

Each of these sentences has a pronoun error. Correct it.

Every student must hand in their essay by Friday.
When a teacher marks essays, you must be fair.
The committee took their decision quickly.
Mariama and Foday lost his pen.

Work through them:

Every student — third person singular. The traditional fix is his or her essay. Modern English also accepts their in this case, so the original is now considered acceptable. Safest formal version: Every student must hand in his or her essay by Friday.
A teacher is third person; you is second person — shift. Fix: When a teacher marks essays, he or she must be fair. Or rewrite to second person throughout: When you mark essays, you must be fair.
The committee is a collective noun, singular by default — should take its, not their. Fix: The committee took its decision quickly.
Two people (Mariama and Foday) cannot share his — that is singular masculine. Fix: Mariama and Foday lost their pens.

Why pronouns matter

Pronouns are short, common, and easy to misuse — which is why WAEC tests them so heavily. The rules are mechanical, like the rules for nouns: once you know them, you apply them the same way every time. Strong candidates handle pronouns automatically; weak candidates make pronoun errors in every paragraph, and those errors stand out to markers.

Pronouns are also where the flow of your writing comes from. A paragraph without pronouns is robotic (see the opening of this lesson). A paragraph with too many vague pronouns is confusing (she gave her her book — who?). The art is using just enough pronouns to keep the writing smooth, with every pronoun pointing to a clear antecedent.

Common mistake

Three pronoun errors to start watching for now:

1. Vague antecedent.

❌ Aminata told Mariama that she had passed. — who passed?
✓ Aminata told Mariama, "I passed." — direct speech makes it clear.
✓ Aminata congratulated Mariama on passing. — best, rewrite without the pronoun.

2. Wrong-case pronoun in a compound.

❌ Aminata and me went to the market.
✓ Aminata and I went to the market.
❌ Give the book to her and I.
✓ Give the book to her and me.

We cover this fully in the next lesson.

3. Apostrophe on a possessive pronoun.

❌ That book is her's.
✓ That book is hers.
❌ The dog wagged it's tail.
✓ The dog wagged its tail.

Possessive pronouns NEVER take an apostrophe. We cover this in detail in Lesson 3.

WAEC tests this

Pronoun questions appear in every WAEC paper. The patterns:

Lexis and Structure objectives: a sentence with a blank — Either Aminata or her sisters will bring ____ books — and four options testing agreement (his, her, their, its). Answer: their (proximity rule, the nearest subject is plural).
Error identification: a sentence with four underlined parts, one a wrong pronoun (its for it's, me for I, who for whom).
Comprehension: questions ask you to identify the antecedent of a pronoun in the passage — In line 12, the word "they" refers to ____.
Essay marking: shift in person, vague antecedents, and apostrophe errors on possessive pronouns are all marked down.

Master pronouns and you remove an entire category of common errors from your writing.

Quick self-check

Identify the antecedent of each bolded pronoun. Answers below.

Foday gave his mother her birthday present.
The students opened their books.
When the dog saw the cat, it ran away. (note the ambiguity)
Mariama and Aminata laughed at themselves in the mirror.
Everyone in the class did his or her best.

Answers

her → his mother (not Foday; he is masculine)
their → the students
it is ambiguous — could be the dog or the cat. Bad writing. Fix by replacing with the noun.
themselves → Mariama and Aminata
his or her → everyone (indefinite pronoun, singular)

What's next

In the next lesson we move into the most important family: personal pronouns. We will master the subject form (I, he, she, we, they) and the object form (me, him, her, us, them) — the distinction that creates almost half of WAEC's pronoun questions. You will learn the simple test that solves every Aminata and I vs Aminata and me problem, and the pattern that decides which form to use after prepositions and linking verbs.

What Are Pronouns?