Pronoun Cases — Nominative, Objective, and Possessive

Written by

Daniel Bal

February 13, 2024

Edited by

Courtney Adamo

Fact-checked by

Paul Mazzola

Cases of pronouns

The case of a pronoun indicates how it is related to the other words in a sentence. There are three cases of personal pronouns: nominative, objective, and possessive.

Nominative pronouns

When a pronoun is the subject of a sentence, it is in the nominative case (also called the subjective case). Nominative case pronouns in English are: I, you, he, she, it, they, and we.

Nominative pronouns are often referred to as subjective pronouns. They are the subject of a verb and identify who or what performs the action in a sentence:

• Nominative Pronouns: he

• Action Performed: decided

Objective case pronouns

The objective case is used as the direct object, indirect object, or the object of the preposition. Objective pronouns are: me, you, him, her, it, us, and them.

Direct Object: The thing acted upon by the verb

Indirect Object: The recipient of the direct object

Object of a Preposition: The noun or pronoun that follows the preposition

Possessive case pronouns {#pos}

Possessive case pronouns show possession. Unlike nouns, possessive pronouns do not use apostrophes to show ownership.

Possessive pronouns include: mine, yours, his, hers, its, ours, and theirs.

Possessive determiners, which act like pronouns by replacing nouns, are also considered possessive pronouns. Possessive determiners are: my, your, his, her, its, our, and their.

The following sentence incorporates the correct use of both the possessive case and a possessive determiner:

• Possessive pronoun: mine

• Possessive determiner: your

Examples of subjective case pronouns

The following sentences include examples of nominative pronouns:

• He decided to leave work early to finish some errands.

• They bought a house closer to the city to shorten their commute.

• We ended up taking a different route home.

• You finished mowing the lawn, right?

• She loved being able to spend the summer overseas.

Objective case pronoun examples

The following sentences include examples of objective case pronouns:

Direct Object:

• The new boss thought the employees respected him.

• After the student arrived late, he was able to join them.

Indirect Object

• I asked Wendy if she could hand me the bug spray.

• The professor gave us three days to work on the essay.

Object of a Preposition:

• Will decided he would sit by them on the train.

• The server shared the daily specials with us.

Possessive case pronoun examples

The following sentences include examples of possessive case pronouns:

• The cell phone left on the table is hers.

• It looks like this book is yours.

• Luckily, my brother gets along with his sister.

• The brown house with the red shutters is ours.

• The first example on the board is mine.