Editing Object pronoun

{{short description|Personal pronoun that is used typically as a grammatical object}}
In [[linguistics]], an '''object pronoun''' is a [[personal pronoun]] that is used typically as a [[grammatical object]]: the direct or indirect object of a verb, or the object of a preposition. Object pronouns contrast with [[subject pronoun]]s. Object pronouns in English take the ''[[Oblique case|objective case]]'', sometimes called the ''oblique case'' or ''object case''.<ref>[[Randolph Quirk]], [[Sidney Greenbaum]], [[Geoffrey Leech]], and Jan Svartvik, ''A Comprehensive Grammar of the English Language'' (London: Longman, 1985), p. 337.</ref>
For example, the English object pronoun ''me'' is found in "They see '''me'''" (direct object), "He's giving '''me''' my book" (indirect object), and "Sit with '''me'''" (object of a preposition); this contrasts with the subject pronoun in "'''I''' see them," "'''I''' am getting my book," and "'''I''' am sitting here."

==English==

The English personal and interrogative pronouns have the following subject and object forms:

{| class="wikitable"
|-
! Singular subject <br>pronoun
! Singular object <br>pronoun
|- align=center
| I
| me
|- align=center
| colspan=2| you
|- align=center
| he
| him
|- align=center
| she
| her
|- align=center
|- align=center
| colspan=2| it
|-
|}

{| class="wikitable"
|-
! Plural subject <br>pronoun
! Plural object <br>pronoun
|- align=center
| we
| us
|- align=center
| colspan=2| you
|- align=center
| they
| them
|- align=center
|-
|}

{| class="wikitable"
|-
! Interrogative subject <br>pronoun
! Interrogative object <br>pronoun
|- align=center
| [[who (pronoun)|who]]
| whom
|- align=center
| colspan=2| what
|}

==Archaic second person forms==

Historically, [[Middle English]] and [[Early Modern English]] retained the [[T–V distinction]]; the [[Grammatical person|second person pronoun]] had separate singular/familiar and plural/formal forms with subject and object forms of both.  In standard modern forms of English, all second person forms have been reduced to simply "you".  These forms are still retained (sometimes partially) in some dialects of [[English language in Northern England|Northern English]], [[Scottish English]], and in the [[Scots language]], a Germanic language closely related to English which diverged from it during the Early Modern period.

{| class="wikitable"
|-
! Singular/familiar subject <br>pronoun
! Singular/familiar object <br>pronoun
|- align=center
| [[thou]]
| thee
|-
|}

{| class="wikitable"
|-
! Plural/formal subject <br>pronoun
! Plural/formal object <br>pronoun
|- align=center
| [[Ye (pronoun)|ye]]
| you
|-
|}

==Other languages==

In some languages the ''direct'' object pronoun and the ''indirect'' object pronoun have separate forms. For example, in the [[Spanish object pronoun]] system, ''direct object'': '''Lo''' mandaron a la escuela (They sent '''him''' to school) and ''indirect object'': '''Le''' mandaron una carta (They sent '''him''' a letter). Other languages divide object pronouns into a larger variety of classes.
On the other hand, many languages, for example Persian, do not have distinct object pronouns: '''''Man''' Farsi balad-am'' ('''I''' can speak [[Persian language|Persian]]). '''''Man''' ra mishenasad.'' (He knows '''me''').

==History==
Object pronouns, in languages where they are distinguished from subject pronouns, are typically a vestige of an older [[Grammatical case|case]] system. English, for example, once had an extensive [[declension]] system that specified distinct [[accusative case|accusative]] and [[dative case|dative]] case ''forms'' for both nouns and pronouns. And after a [[Preposition and postposition|preposition]], a noun or pronoun could be in either of these cases, or in the [[genitive case|genitive]] or [[instrumental case|instrumental]] cases. With the exception of the genitive (the [[English possessive|"apostrophe-s" form]]), in nouns this system disappeared entirely, while in personal pronouns it collapsed into a single case, covering the roles of both accusative and dative, as well as all instances after a preposition. That is, the new oblique (object) case came to be used for the object of either a verb or a preposition, contrasting with the genitive, which links two nouns.

For a discussion of the use of historically object pronouns in subject position in English (e.g. "Jay and '''me''' will arrive later"), see the article on [[English personal pronouns#Case usage|English personal pronouns]].

==See also==
* [[Object (grammar)]]
* [[Subject (grammar)]]

==References==
<references/>

{{lexical categories|state=collapsed}}

[[Category:Personal pronouns]]