Compound Personal Pronoun

Definition

Compound personal pronoun can be defined as “Compound personal pronouns may be used as reflexive pronouns or as intensive pronouns. Reflexive pronouns reflect an action back onto the subject of a verb or of an infinitive—or onto a possessive noun or pronoun—in the same sentence.”

Explanation

Compound personal pronoun is a pronoun which is formed by adding suffix at the end of words such as ”self” (for singular) or ”selves” (for plural) to certain personal pronouns.

Compound personal pronouns are called as compounds because they are made from a personal pronoun by adding the suffix. We can divide compound personal pronouns into first person, second person and third person.

First person: myself, ourselves, etc.

Second person: yourself, yourselves, etc.

Third person: himself, herself, themselves, itself, etc.

Examples of Compound Personal Pronoun

In the first and second person types personal pronouns, we can add suffix to the possessive adjectives (such as my, your, our, etc). However, in the third person type personal pronouns, we can add suffix to the object pronouns (such as him, her, it, them, etc).

For example:

• He can understand himself better.
• She bought herself two new pens.
• They can not do it themselves.
• You can be prepared for the exam yourself.
• We can perform this ourselves very easily.
• This man himself can defeat the alligator.
• She herself helped us.
• They themselves went to the temple and prayed for us.

Types

There are two types of the compound personal pronouns such as reflexive and intensive. Both types have same forms however different functions.

Reflexive pronoun: Reflexive pronouns act as an object of verb however indicate action back to the subject. Its exist as same person or thing in the sentence as subject such as:

Examples of Reflexive Pronoun

• He blamed himself for the failure in the competition.
• She hurt herself for the group mistake.
• I gave myself enough time to get prepared for this competition.
• You should not let yourself involve in this case.
• He bought himself a gift for me.
• She reads important news herself.
• The dog has scratched itself very badly.
• We have treated ourselves in a big hotel at this occasion.
• You can make this recipe yourselves at home.
• Kids are able to perform well themselves.

Intensive pronoun: Intensive pronouns show importance for the noun or pronoun exist in the sentence.

Generally, intensive pronouns appear near to the subject in sentence

Examples of Intensive Pronoun:

• Have you wrote this book yourselves.
• You yourself spent all money.
• I have cooked today’s lunch myself.
• I made myself sick because of the heat.
• You yourself are responsible for all the problems in school.
• He himself will participate in the rally.
• She herself has written these lines.
• Dog itself has caught the cat.
• We ourselves won the game.
• They themselves helped the poor people.

Exercises

1) Compound Personal Pronoun Exercises for you

We have provided below some exercises in order to help you to improve your knowledge about compound personal pronoun. You need to get detail information about compound personal pronoun provided above and check your skill by doing following exercises.

Choose the correct compound personal pronouns from the following sentences given below and match with the given answer:

1. You dressed yourself very nicely.
2. He threw this ball himself on window.
3. You yourself must deliver all letters at right time.
4. He himself tried to paint whole office.
5. They themselves were unable to help a poor man.
6. She has prepared herself for the dance competition.
7. A dirty dog has scratched this car itself.
8. Mr. Patel suggest they do painting themselves.
9. Rupa, Vivan, Merry and I made the tasty lunch ourselves.
10. We won the competition ourselves without any help.
11. It caught fire itself very fast.
12. I have finished the task myself.
13. We have solved a big social problem ourselves.
14. You should complete the given task yourself.
15. We go to gym but do all exercises ourselves.
16. I have built this bookcase myself.
17. Have you finished the job yourselves.
18. Sumit has organized the presentation by himself.
19. Sauna es herself.
20. We have organized this party ourselves.
21. This window just locked itself.
22. She does not involve herself in any problem.
23. Read this news yourselves; I am sure you will both enjoy a lot.
24. We have corrected the electricity problem ourselves in this building.
25. He himself was not sure that he will pass the exam.

Answers: 1 – yourself, 2 – himself, 3 – yourself, 4 – himself, 5 – themselves, 6 – herself, 7 – itself, 8 – themselves, 9 – ourselves, 10 – ourselves, 11 – itself, 12 – myself, 13 – ourselves, 14 – yourself, 15 – ourselves, 16 – myself, 17 – yourselves, 18 – himself, 19 – herself, 20 – ourselves, 21 – itself, 22 – herself, 23 – yourselves, 24 – ourselves, 25 – himself.

2) Compound Personal Pronoun Exercises for you

Here are some sentences given below, you need to fill the correct compound personal pronoun in the blank in each sentence. After completing the task you can be sure by matching with the answers given below:

• The doctor _____ need to care his patients.
• Sujata, can you fix this problem _____?
• She _____ learned to play the piano.
• Washing machine has an automatic water drainage system _____.
• Fourth class students wrote and performed the song _____.
• Suhana, have you hurt _____?
• Nursery class kids cry _____ very loudly to go home.
• Nisha learned _____ how to play badminton.
• We were angry at _____ for mistake in the class.
• The installments for TV cut _____ from the account.
• They finished the painting _____.
• Rudra prepared the breakfast _____.
• Ravi, Raima, and you can finish the task _____.
• The movie _____ was very boring, however I liked it.

Answers: 1 – himself, 2 – yourself, 3 – herself, 4 – itself, 5 – themselves, 6 – yourself, 7 – themselves, 8 – herself, 9 – ourselves, 10 – itself, 11 – themselves, 12 – himself, 13 – yourselves, 14 – itself.

Related Information:

Pronoun
Personal Pronoun
Possessive Pronoun
Demonstrative Pronoun
Indefinite Pronoun
Distributive Pronoun
Reciprocal Pronoun
Relative Pronoun
Interrogative Pronoun