There are several types of sentences that cause confusion about whether to use a subject or object pronoun: sentences with a compound subject or object; sentences with a pronoun followed directly by a noun; and sentences that use pronouns after than or as. After this lesson, you'll be much more confident about which pronouns to use in these tricky situations.

Definition: Ante (not anti) means before. The root cedere means to go. The antecedent goes before the pronoun. It is the noun that the pronoun replaces. A pronoun must match, or agree, with its antecedent in number, person, and gender.

Hint:You can be sure a noun is the antecedent if you can use that noun in place of the pronoun.

My mother gave me her bracelet.
My mother gave me my mother's bracelet.

Definition: A relative is someone who has a relationship with you. Relative pronouns show a relationship between a noun and a clause. The clause provides describing information about the noun. You can also use relative pronouns to combine two sentences into one.

Relative Pronouns

That Which Who Whom Whose

Irregular nouns form plurals in unusual ways. Dictionaries will give you the plural spelling if it is irregular.

one child ⇒ two children
one foot ⇒ two feet
one tooth ⇒ two teeth
one man ⇒ two men

To form yes/no questions where there is an auxiliary verb or a modal verb, we invert the word order of a positive sentence.

Question forms & subject/object questions
Review of question forms

Yes/No questions