In linguistics, a subject pronoun is a personal pronoun that is used as the

subject Subject ( la, subiectus "lying beneath") may refer to: Philosophy *''Hypokeimenon'', or ''subiectum'', in metaphysics, the "internal", non-objective being of a thing **Subject (philosophy), a being that has subjective experiences, subjective cons ...

of a verb. Subject pronouns are usually in the nominative case for languages with a nominative–accusative alignment pattern. On the other hand, a language with an ergative-absolutive pattern usually has separate subject pronouns for transitive and intransitive verbs: an ergative case pronoun for transitive verbs and an absolutive case pronoun for transitive verbs. In English, the subject pronouns are ''I'', '' you'', '' thou'', '' he'', ''

she She most commonly refers to: *She (pronoun), the third person singular, feminine, nominative case pronoun in modern English. She or S.H.E. may also refer to: Literature and films *'' She: A History of Adventure'', an 1887 novel by H. Rider Hagga ...

'', ''it'', ''

one 1 (one, unit, unity) is a number representing a single or the only entity. 1 is also a numerical digit and represents a single unit of counting or measurement. For example, a line segment of ''unit length'' is a line segment of length 1. I ...

'', '' we'', '' ye'', '' they'', ''who'' and '' what''. With the exception of ''you'', ''it'', ''one'' and ''what'', and in informal speech ''who'', Randolph Quirk, Sidney Greenbaum,

Geoffrey Leech Geoffrey Neil Leech FBA (16 January 1936 – 19 August 2014) was a specialist in English language and linguistics. He was the author, co-author, or editor of over 30 books and over 120 published papers. His main academic interests were English ...

, and Jan Svartvik, ''A Comprehensive Grammar of the English Language'' (London: Longman, 1985), pp. 367 and 370. the object pronouns are different: i.e. ''me,'' ''thee'', ''him,'' ''her,'' ''us,'' ''you'' (objective case of ''ye'')'','' ''them'' and ''whom'' (see

English personal pronouns The English personal pronouns are a subset of English pronouns taking various forms according to grammatical number, number, grammatical person, person, grammatical case, case and natural gender. Modern English has very little inflection of nouns ...

). In some cases, the subject pronoun is not used for the logical subject. For example, exceptional case marking (ECM) constructions involve the subject of a

non-finite clause In linguistics, a non-finite clause is a dependent or embedded clause that represents a state or event in the same way no matter whether it takes place before, during, or after text production. In this sense, a non-finite dependent clause represe ...

which appears in the object form (e.g., ''I want him to go''.) In

colloquial speech Colloquialism (), also called colloquial language, everyday language or general parlance, is the linguistic style used for casual (informal) communication. It is the most common functional style of speech, the idiom normally employed in conversa ...

, a coordinated

first person First person or first-person may refer to: * First person (ethnic), indigenous peoples, usually used in the plural * First person, a grammatical person * First person, a gender-neutral, marital-neutral term for titles such as first lady and first ...

subject will often appear in the object form even in subject position (e.g., ''Me and James went to the store''.) This is corrected so often that it has led to cases of

hypercorrection In sociolinguistics, hypercorrection is non-standard use of language that results from the over-application of a perceived rule of language-usage prescription. A speaker or writer who produces a hypercorrection generally believes through a mi ...

, where the subject pronoun is used even in object position under coordination (e.g., ''Marie gave Susana and I a piece of cake.)

References

Personal pronouns {{ling-morph-stub

See also

References