Cases of Nouns and Pronouns

Nouns and pronouns in English are said to display case according to their function in the sentence. They can be subjective or nominative (which means they act as the subject of independent or dependent clauses), possessive (which means they show possession of something else), or objective (which means they function as the recipient of action or are the object of a preposition).

Except for the possessive forms (usually formed by the addition of an apostrophe and the letter s), nouns do not change form in English. (This is one of the few ways in which English is easier than other languages.) Pronouns, however, do change form when they change case; these changes are most clearly illustrated among the personal pronouns. The chart below illustrates the different forms among the cases.

	Subjective	Possessive	Objective
Nouns
Singular
	frog	frog's	frog
	Mary	Mary's	Mary
Plural
	frogs	frogs'	frogs
	witches	witches'	witches
Personal Pronouns
Singular
1st person	I	my, mine	me
2nd person	you	your, yours	you
3rd person	he she it	his her, hers its	him her it
Plural
1st person	we	our, ours	us
2nd person	you	your, yours	you
3rd person	they	their, theirs	them
Relative and interrogative pronouns
	who	whose	whom
	whoever		whomever
	which/that/what		which/that/what
Indefinite pronouns
	everybody	everybody's	everybody

Jayden and I versus Jayden and Me

For some writers and speakers, the case of a pronoun becomes especially troublesome when that pronoun is compounded with something or someone else. When the pronoun is being used as a subject, there is usually no problem:

Jayden and I are playing tennis this afternoon.
Jayden and she are playing tennis this afternoon.

We learn this lesson so well — getting cuffed on the ears and being forced to stand in the corner when we say "Jayden and me are playing tennis. . . " — that when the object form of the pronoun is truly called for, we're apt to come up with the subject form instead, as in "Grandma left Jayden and I her rocking chair," which is bad form, indeed.

There is a simple rule here that seems to work very well, at least in writing. Ask yourself what pronoun form you would use without adding the other person — "Grandma left me her rocking chair" (coming up with the correct form for the indirect object) — and then, when you add the other person, don't change the form of the pronoun: "Grandma left Jayden and me her rocking chair."

This rule works whether the pronoun is being used as an indirect object, as above, as a direct object — "The policeman stopped Jayden and me" — or as the object of a preposition — "Grandma gave her rocking chair to Jayden and me." Some writers and speakers will mistakenly say "This is just between Jayden and I," not realizing that the preposition "between" calls for the object form of both pronouns, including "me."

The rule also pertains to sentences in which a pronoun is compounded with yet another pronoun: "Grandma gave her rocking chair to him and me, but that's just between you and me."

Notice that when "I" is compounded with another subject, the "other person" or people get first billing: "Jayden and I are playing," not "I and Jayden." This is one of the very few polite forms in English.

Choosing Cases after Linking Verbs
and after But, Than, and As

In formal or academic text, we need the nominative or subject form of the pronoun after a linking verb: "It was he who represented the United Nations during the 1960s," "That must be she on the dock over there." In casual speech and writing, however, that sounds awfully stuffy. Imagine the detective who's been looking for the victim's body for days. He jimmies open the trunk of an abandoned car and exclaims, "It's she!" No self-respecting detective since Sherlock Holmes would say such a thing.

When the personal pronoun follows except, but, than, or as, you've got an argument on your hands. Traditionally, these words have been regarded as conjunctions and the personal pronoun that follows has been regarded as the subject of a clause (which might not be completed). Thus "No one could be as happy as I." (If you provide the entire mechanism of the clause — "as I [am]" — you see the justification for the subject form.) The same goes for these other conjunctions: "Whom were you expecting? who else but he?" "My father is still taller than she" [than she is].

Many grammarians have argued, however, that these words are often used as prepositions, not conjunctions (and have been used that way for centuries by many good writers). In a structure such as "My mother is a lot like her," we have no trouble recognizing that "like" is acting as a preposition and we need the object form of the pronoun after it. Why, then, can't we use "than" and "but" as prepositions in sentences such as "Dad's a lot taller than him" and "No one in this class has done the homework but me"? Such usage is now widely regarded as acceptable in all but the most formal writing. The same argument is sometimes used for the object form after as — "The coach is not as smart as me" — but this argument does not enjoy the cogency of using the object form after but and than.

Garner* argues that when the pronoun precedes the but phrase, the objective case should be used ("None of the students were interested but him"); when the but phrase precedes the verb, the subject case is appropriate ("None of the students but he were interested"). The argument goes that in the former case but is behaving as a preposition, in the second as a conjunction.

Choosing Cases in the Appositive Position

An appositive is the renaming or amplification of something earlier in the sentence. In the sentence "Ronald E. Pepin, translator of several Latin texts, will speak at our symposium on translating dead languages tomorrow," the phrase "translator of several Latin texts" is a re-identification of the person's name, an appositive. Occasionally, pronouns can fall into the appositive slot of a sentence and that can create questions about case. If the appositive is renaming something that functions as a subject, the pronoun should take the subject form; if the appositve is renaming something that functions as an object, the pronoun must take the object form.

• The two people in charge of the symposium, Micki and I, will help pay for the damages. (where "Micki and I" renames the subject, "two people")
• Nobody in the auditorium, not even he, expected that a riot would break out. (where "he" agrees with the subject "nobody")
• My favorite professors, Dr. Pepin and she, gave interesting talks. (where "she" corresponds to the subject "professors")
• Great Grandmother Etherea left her money to her favorite people, Jayden and me. (where "me" agrees with the object of the preposition "people")
• The bank credited two different groups, the Stamp Club and us, with making deposits on the same day. (where "us" agrees with the object "groups")

When a sentence with compounded pronouns sounds intolerably klutzy, the sentence will have to be rewritten. "The group gave certificates of recognition to the two oldest members, him and me" might sound better as "The group gave certificates of recognition to him and me [or 'to both of us'], the two oldest members" or "He and I, the two oldest members of the group, received certificates of recognition."

Choosing Cases When Pronouns Are Combined
with Other Subjects/Objects

Occasionally pronouns are connected to other subjects or objects in the sentence. In that case, the case of the pronoun can be important and errors are apt to be made, especially in the object position. Generally, the choice becomes obvious when you drop the noun or noun phrase that the pronoun is combined with.

• We students can no longer tolerate the administration's mismanagement of funds. [We can no longer tolerate … ]
• The administration has given us students no alternative. [… has given us no alternative.]

In the second person, this is not really a problem, because the form of "you" remains the same whether it is singular or plural, subject or object.

• You students need to take care of this situation on your own.
• I'm giving you students three months to come up with a solution.

Choosing Cases in Exhortations Beginning with Let

When a pronoun follows "let" in a mild exhortation, we use the object form of the pronoun. We say "Let us go then," but we're apt to slip in the subject form, especially when the pronouns are compounded: "And now, let you and I take the first step toward reconciliation." (It should read "let you and me … ") And in the Biblical admonition, we read "Let he who is without guilt cast the first stone." (It should read "Let him who is without guilt cast the first stone.")

Choosing Cases in Captions

Let's say you're putting together a photo album, and there's a nice photo of you and Grandpa, fishing. Should the caption read "Grandpa and Me, Fishing on Lake Pymatuning" or "Grandpa and I, Fishing"? The nominative form, "Grandpa and I," sounds awfully formal and highfalutin for this purpose, and we can reasonably argue that the objective form, "Grandpa and Me," is a kind of shorthand for "This is a photo of Grandpa and Me. … " The choice between formal-stuffy and casual-acceptable is up to you.

Subject-verb agreement

Although you are probably already familiar with basic subject-verb agreement, this chapter begins with a quick review of basic agreement rules.

Subjects and verbs must AGREE with one another in number (singular or plural).  Thus, if a subject is singular, its verb must also be singular; if a subject is plural, its verb must also be plural.

In the present tense, nouns and verbs form plurals in opposite ways: nouns ADD an s to the singular form; verbs REMOVE the s from the singular form.

                                     

These agreement rules do not apply to verbs used in the simple past tense without any helping verbs.

                  

The agreement rules do, however, apply to the following helping verbs when they are used with a main verb: is-are, was-were, has-have, does-do.

                      

The agreement rules do not apply to has-have when used as the SECOND helping verb in a pair. 

                     

They do NOT apply to any other helping verbs, such as can, could, shall, should, may, might, will, would, must.

                 

The subject-verb agreement rules apply to all personal pronouns except I and you, which, although SINGULAR, require PLURAL forms of verbs.

  

The remainder of this teaching unit deals with some more advanced subject-verb agreement rules and with exceptions to the original subject-verb agreement rule

Compound Subject

  The word “compound” means “made up of two or more parts.”  Two or more words can be compounded or linked by joining them with any of three words:

                                               and, or, and nor

Here are some examples of compounding:

              

Compound nouns can function as a “compound subject.”  In some instances, a compound subject poses special problems for the subject-verb agreement rule (+s, -s).

 

However, instead of using two sentences (as above), we may choose to give the above information in one sentence.

                      

This sentence makes use of a compound subject (two subject nouns joined by and), illustrating a new rule about subject-verb agreement.

Although each part of the compound subject is singular (ranger and camper), taken together (joined by and), each one becomes a part of a plural structure and, therefore, must take a plural verb (see) to agree in the sentence.

SUBJECT-VERB RULE #1 – Two or more singular (or plural) subjects joined by and act as a plural compound subject and take a plural verb (singular + singular = plural).

You can check the verb by substituting the pronoun they for the compound subject.

                        

Or and nor as joiners work somewhat differently from and.  While the word and seems to ADD things together, or and nor do not.  They suggest a CHOICE.

                    

Look at this sentence.

                   

This sentence makes use of a compound subject (two subject nouns joined together by or).  Each part of the compound subject (ranger, camper) is singular.  Even though both words function together as subject (joined by or), the subject still remains SINGULAR (ranger or camper) since a CHOICE is implied.

This compound subject, therefore, requires a singular verb to agree with it.

SUBJECT-VERB RULE #2 – Two or more SINGULAR subjects joined by or (or nor) act as a singular compound subject and, therefore, take a singular verb to agree.

Note:  Two or more plural subjects joined by or (or nor) would naturally take a plural verb to agree.

                          

However, or and nor can pose a more difficult problem.

Thus far we have been working with compound subjects whose individual parts are both either singular or plural

      

 What if one part of the compound subject is singular and the other part is plural?

              

What form of a verb should be used in this case?  Should the verb be singular to agree with one word?  Or should the verb be plural to agree with the other?

Solution:

1.      If the individual parts of the compound subject are joined by and, always use a plural verb.

                        

2.      If the individual parts of the compound subject are joined by or or nor, use the verb form (singular or plural) which will agree with the subject closer to the verb.

       

Group Nouns

Some nouns which name groups can be either singular or plural depending upon their meaning in individual sentences.

                              

Because they can describe either the individuals in the group (more than one – plural), or the group as a single entity (one only – singular), these nouns pose special problems.

However, there are some guidelines for deciding which verb form (singular or plural) to use with one of these nouns as the subject in a sentence.

If we refer to the group as a whole and, therefore, as a single unit, we consider the noun singular.  In this case, we use a singular verb. 

                  

If, on the other hand, we are actually referring to the individuals within the group, then we consider the noun plural.  In this case, we use a plural verb.

         

Of course group nouns, like other nouns, can also appear in plural forms (with an s).

                      

When used in the plural form, group nouns mean MORE THAN ONE GROUP.  Thus, it uses a plural verb.

                 

Thus, there are three important subject – verb agreement rules to remember when a group noun is used as the subject:

1.      Group nouns can be considered as a single unit, and, thus, take a singular verb.

2.      Group nouns can be considered as individual members within a single unit and, thus, take a plural verb.

3.      Group nouns can be given plural forms to mean two or more units and, thus, take a plural verb.

Plural Form / Singular Meaning Nouns

Some nouns are regularly plural in form, but singular in meaning.

                            

Even though these nouns APPEAR to be plural because they end in s, they actually refer to only one thing made up of smaller, uncounted parts.  Therefore, they are considered singular.

                  

You can see that substituting that pronoun it instead of they makes more sense here.

Another group of plural form nouns end in –ics.

                     

Similarly, it is a more suitable substitute for any of these words than is they.

These nouns appear to be plural (end in s), but generally refer to only one thing and are, therefore, generally considered singular.

              

NOTE:  Occasionally, however, the –ics nouns can have a plural meaning:  We can speak about individual parts of these wholes.  In this case, we apply the same rule as applies to group nouns when we consider the individual members within the group (see Section 3.3):  We use a plural verb.

Note the difference in meaning and, therefore, in the verb chosen (singular or plural) between the two uses of the –ics noun, statistics.

       

Indefinite pronouns can pose special problems in subject – verb agreement.

The difficulty is that some indefinite pronouns sound plural when they are really singular.

As subjects, the following indefinite pronouns ALWAYS take singular verbs.  Look at them closely.

                  

                                                  These should be easy to remember.

                

However, the following indefinite pronouns ALWAYS take plural verbs.

                                  

              

EXCEPTIONS:

A third group of indefinite pronouns takes either a singular or plural verb depending on the pronoun’s meaning in the sentence.  Look at them closely.

                                      (“SANAM”)

   

So far we have considered subjects that can cause subject-verb agreement confusion: compound subjects, group noun subjects, plural form – singular meaning subjects, and indefinitesubjects.

The remainder of this teaching unit examines subject – verb agreement problems that can result from word placement in sentences.  There are four main problems: prepositional phrases,clauses beginning with who, that, or which, sentences beginning with here or there, and questions.

              

                                      

Here is a list of frequently used prepositions:

                              

A prepositional phrase may be placed between the subject and verb.

                    

In the above example, the singular verb is agrees with the singular subject boy.

Sometimes, however, a prepositional phrase inserted between the subject and verb makes agreement more difficult.

      

Car is the singular subject.  Was is the singular helping verb which agrees with car.  If we aren’t careful, however, we may mistakenly label riders as the subject since it is nearer to the verb thancar is.  If we choose the plural noun, riders, we will incorrectly select the plural verb were.

      

Solution to the Prepositional Phrase Problem

1.      Learn the major prepositions (see page 28).

2.      Be alert for prepositional phrases placed between the subject and verb, and identify the noun in the phrase immediately as the object of a preposition: An object of a preposition can NEVER be a sentence subject.

3.      Locate the true sentence subject and choose a verb which agrees with it.

                 

4.      Remember the indefinite pronoun EXCEPTIONS considered in Section 3.5, p.18:  Some, Any, None, All, and Most.  The number of these subject words IS affected by a prepositional phrase between the subject and verb.

A clause beginning with who, that, or which and coming BETWEEN the subject and verb can cause agreement problems.

Like the prepositional phrase, the who / that / which clause never contains the subject.

  

TO AVOID SUBJECT – VERB AGREEMENT ERRORS  . . .

1.      Identify who / that / which clauses immediately.

              

2.  Locate the true sentence subject and choose a verb that agrees with it.

             

When a sentence begins with there is – there are / here is – here are, the subject and verb are inverted.  After all that you have learned already, you will undoubtedly find this topic a relatively easy one!

                      

The verb in such constructions is obviously is or are.  The subject, however, does not come BEFORE the verb.

Instead, the subject in this kind of sentence comes AFTER the verb, so you must look for it AFTER the verb. 

                

In this example, because the subject, book, is singular, the verb must also be singular.

If the subject is plural, however, then the verb must be plural.

                      

In this example, because the subject, books, is plural, the verb is also plural.

Remember: In here is – here are / there is – there are constructions, look for the subject AFTER the verb and choose a singular (is) or a plural (are) verb to agree with the subject.

And finally, sometimes creating a question will cause the subject to follow the verb as well. Here, identify the subject and then choose the verb that agrees with it (singular or plural).

                      

      

Pronouns and its kinds

A pronoun is a word that replaces a noun in a sentence. Pronouns are used so that our language is not cumbersome with the same nouns being repeated over and over in a paragraph. Some examples of pronouns include I, me, mine, myself, she, her, hers, herself, we, us, ours and ourselves. You may have noticed that they tend to come in sets of four, all referring to the same person, group or thing.

• He, him, his and himself, for example, all refer to a male person or something belonging to him
• They, them, theirs and themselves all refer to a group or something belonging to a group, and so on.

The truth is that there are many different types of pronouns, each serving a different purpose in a sentence.

Personal Pronouns

Personal pronouns can be the subject of a clause or sentence. They are: I, he, she, it, they, we, and you. Example: “They went to the store.”

Personal pronouns can also be objective, where they are the object of a verb, preposition, or infinitive phrase. They are: me, her, him, it, you, them, and us. Example: “David gave the gift to her.”

Possession can be shown by personal pronouns, like: mine, his, hers, ours, yours, its, and theirs. Example: “Is this mine or yours?”

Subject Pronouns

Subject pronouns are often (but not always) found at the beginning of a sentence. More precisely, the subject of a sentence is the person or thing that lives out the verb.

• I owe that person $3,000. – I am living out that debt. I is the subject pronoun.
• He and I had a fight. – This sentence has two subjects because he and I were both involved in the fight.
• He broke my kneecaps. – You get the idea.
• To him, I must now pay my children's college funds. – If you'll notice, the verb in this sentence – the action – is "pay." Although I is not at the beginning of the sentence, it is the person living out the action and is, therefore, the subject.

Object Pronouns

By contrast, objects and object pronouns indicate the recipient of an action or motion. They come after verbs and prepositions (to, with, for, at, on, beside, under, around, etc.).

• The guy I borrowed money from showed me a crowbar and told me to pay him immediately.
• I begged him for more time.
• He said he'd given me enough time already.
• I tried to dodge the crowbar, but he hit me with it anyway.
• Just then, the police arrived and arrested us.

Subject vs. Object Pronouns

There is often confusion over which pronouns you should use when you are one half of a dual subject or object. For example, should you say:

• "Me and him had a fight." or "He and I had a fight?"
• "The police arrested me and him." or "The police arrested he and I?"

Some people will tell you that you should always put the other person first and refer to yourself as "I" because it's more proper, but those people are wrong. You can put the other person first out of politeness, but you should always use the correct pronouns (subject or object) for the sentence.

A good test to decide which one you need is to try the sentence with one pronoun at a time. Would you say, "Me had a fight?" Of course not. You'd say, "I had a fight." What about, "Him had a fight?" No, you'd say, "He had a fight." So when you put the two subjects together, you get, "He and I had a fight." The same rule applies to the other example.

• You wouldn't say, "The police arrested he," or, "The police arrested I."
• You would use "him" and "me."

So the correct sentence is, "The police arrested him and me."

Possessive Adjectives vs. Possessive Pronouns

Pronominal possessive adjectives include the following: my, your, our, their, his, her and its. They are sort of pronouns in that they refer to an understood noun, showing possession by that noun of something. They are technically adjectives, though, because they modify a noun that follows them.

• My money is all gone.
• I gambled it all away on your race horse.
• His jockey was too fat.

In all of these examples, there is a noun (money, race horse, jockey) that has not been replaced with a pronoun. Instead, an adjective is there to show whose money, horse and jockey we’re talking about.

Possessive pronouns, on the other hand – mine, yours, ours, theirs, his, hers, its – are truly pronouns because they refer to a previously named or understood noun. They stand alone, not followed by any other noun. For comparison's sake, look at this sentence:

• You have your vices, and I have mine.

There are two types of pronouns here: subject (you/I) and possessive (mine). There's also a possessive adjective (your). We'll deal with the subject pronouns momentarily, but for now, just look at the others.

Your is followed by the noun, vices, so although we know that your refers to you, it is not the noun or the noun substitute (pronoun). Vices is the noun. In the second half of the sentence, however, the noun and the possessive adjective have both been replaced with one word – the pronoun, mine. Because it stands in the place of the noun, mine is a true pronoun whereas your is an adjective that must be followed by a noun.

Indefinite Pronouns

These pronouns do not point to any particular nouns, but refer to things or people in general. Some of them are: few, everyone, all, some, anything, and nobody. Example: “Everyone is already here.”

Relative Pronouns

These pronouns are used to connect a clause or phrase to a noun or pronoun. These are: who, whom, which, whoever, whomever, whichever, and that. Example: “The driver who ran the stop sign was careless.”

Intensive Pronouns

These pronouns are used to emphasize a noun or pronoun. These are: myself, himself, herself, themselves, itself, yourself, yourselves, and ourselves. Example: “He himself is his worst critic.”  

Demonstrative Pronouns

There are five demonstrative pronouns: these, those, this, that, and such. They focus attention on the nouns that are replacing. Examples: “Such was his understanding.” “Those are totally awesome.”

Interrogative Pronouns

These pronouns are used to begin a question: who, whom, which, what, whoever, whomever, whichever, and whatever. Example: “Who will you bring to the party?”

Reflexive Pronouns

There is one more type of pronoun, and that is the reflexive pronoun. These are the ones that end in “self” or "selves." They are object pronouns that we use when the subject and the object are the same noun.

• I told myself not to bet all my money on one horse.
• The robber hurt himself chasing me through the alley.

We also use them to emphasize the subject.

• Usually, the guy I borrowed the money from will send an employee to collect the money, but since I owed so much, he himself came to my house.

Examples of Pronouns in Context

Now see if you can find all the pronouns and possessive adjectives in this paragraph:

No matter what your teachers may have taught you about pronouns, the I's don't always have it. If your teachers ever warned you about the evils of gambling, however, they were right about that. You don't want someone breaking your kneecaps with his crowbar; it will hurt, the police might arrest you, and you may never forgive yourself.

Nouns and its kinds

Classifications of Nouns

Proper Nouns

Proper nouns are nouns that refer to specific entities. Writers of English capitalize proper nouns like Nebraska, Steve, Harvard, or White House to show their distinction from common nouns.

Common Nouns

Common nouns refer to general, unspecific categories of entities. Whereas Nebraska is a proper noun because it signifies a specific state, the word state itself is a common noun because it can refer to any of the 50 states in the United States. Harvard refers to a particular institution of higher learning, while the common noununiversity can refer to any such institution.

Material Nouns

Material nouns refer to materials or substances from which things are made. While cotton is an adjective when used in cotton dress, cotton is a material noun when used to describe a crop being grown - The farm grew cotton.

Compound Nouns

A compound noun contains two or more words which join together to make a single noun. Compound nouns can be words written together (closed form) such as softball and toothpaste, words that are hyphenated (hyphenated form) such as six-pack and son-in-law, or separate words (open form) such as post office and upper classthat go together by meaning.

Countable Nouns

To linguists, these count nouns can occur in both single and plural forms, can be modified by numerals, and can co-occur with quantificational determiners like many, most, more, several, etc.

For example, the noun bike is a countable noun. Consider the following sentence:

There is a bike in that garage.

In this example, the word bike is singular as it refers to one bike that is presently residing in a particular garage.

However, bike can also occur in the plural form.

There are six broken bikes in that garage.

In this example, the noun bikes refers to more than one bike as it is being modified by the numeral six.

In addition, countable nouns can co-occur with quantificational determiners.

In that garage, several bikes are broken.

This sentence is grammatical, as the noun bike can take the modification of the quantificational determiner several.

Uncountable Nouns or Mass Nouns

Conversely, some nouns are not countable and are called uncountable nouns or mass nouns. For example, the word clutter is a mass noun.

That garage is full of clutter.

This sentence makes grammatical sense. However, the following example does not.

That garage is full of clutters.

Mass nouns can not take plural forms, and therefore a sentence containing the word clutters is ungrammatical.

Substances, liquids, and powders are entities that are often signified by mass nouns such as wood, sand, water, and flour. Other examples would be milk, air, furniture, freedom, rice, and intelligence.

Collective Nouns

In general, collective nouns are nouns that refer to a group of something in a specific manner. Often, collective nouns are used to refer to groups of animals. Consider the following sentences.

Look at the gaggle of geese. There used to be herds of wild buffalo on the prairie. A bevy of swans is swimming in the pond. A colony of ants live in the anthill.

In the above examples, gaggle, herds, bevy, and colony are collective nouns.

Concrete Nouns

Concrete nouns are nouns that can be touched, smelled, seen, felt, or tasted. Steak, table, dog, Maria, salt, and wool are all examples of concrete nouns.

Can I pet your dog? Please pass the salt. Your sweater is made of fine wool.

Concrete nouns can be perceived by at least one of our senses.

Abstract Nouns

More ethereal, theoretical concepts use abstract nouns to refer to them. Concepts like freedom, love, power, and redemption are all examples of abstract nouns.

They hate us for our freedom. All you need is love. We must fight the power.

In these sentences, the abstract nouns refer to concepts, ideas, philosophies, and other entities that cannot be concretely perceived.

Pronouns

Personal pronouns are types of nouns that take the place of nouns when referring to people, places or things. The personal pronouns in English are I, you, he, she, it, and they.

Amy works at a flower shop. She works at a flower shop.

The Greeks invented democracy. They invented democracy.

These pronouns take on other forms depending on what type of function they are performing in a sentence. For example, when used to signify possession of another noun, pronouns take on their possessive form such as mine, ours, hers, and theirs.

That pizza belongs to Marley. That pizza is hers.

When used as the object of a preposition, pronouns take on their objective case. Examples include him, her, me, us, and them.

Hand the money over to Jennifer. Hand the money over to her.

The police are on to John and Ray. The police are on to them.