In the English language, pronouns are words used mostly as substitutes for nouns or noun phrases. The use of pronouns allows a writer to continue depicting a person, a place, or a thing without repeating the discussed noun. This prevents the flow of a particular piece from becoming bulky and repetitive.

      Pronouns used in complete sentences have antecedents. An antecedent is simply the noun which the pronoun refers to, or supersedes.

           Lanre desperately searched for his keys to the safe, but he could not find them.
          (The pronoun his stands for Lanre's, and the pronoun he stands for Lanre;
          the writer uses them to avoid repeating keys to the safe. Lanre is the antecedent
          of his and of he; keys to the safe is the antecedent of them.)

Classification of Pronouns

     Pronouns are generally classified into seven groups, as follows: personal, reflexive, intensive, relative, indefinite, interrogative, and demonstrative.

     In this first part, we will look into personal, reflexive, and intensive pronouns.

Personal Pronouns

     A personal pronoun is a word used in place of a specific person or thing. Personal pronouns include I, you, he, she, it, mine, yours, his, hers, our, ours, and theirs.

Personal pronouns take on four different forms, respectively identified by:

1. The number

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       As humans, we are a curious lot. Is this too wide an assumption? Specifically, there are days that come around when this writer wonders about how there is anything at all – days through which being content with observing events as detached and incomprehensible prove difficult. Consequently, I am left alone to stare at a playful desire for understanding the unseen order in the world. This craving has been with a good number of human beings since antiquity, now that it remains an unhindered enterprise: The search continues for a complete unified theory of laws that govern our universe. If one will ever be found, the writer cannot say. However, what is remarkable is that with each newer and more-complete understanding of physical reality the human’s interaction with its surroundings is redefined. Consider the Industrial Revolution. Computers, the specks of light in the night sky, sky-scrapers, and the recent advances in invisibility cloaks (http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/sci/tech/8025886.stm) – If you have ever had the urge to invent, to conceptually understand the inner workings of phenomena you observe daily, or to comprehend the meaning of your place within this world, then you have contemplated on things that many respected physicists have and still do!

     Then, what is this physics exactly? Physics is originally a Greek word that roughly translates into “the science of change”. Broadly speaking, a physicist seeks to analyze (and through such analysis, understand) the natural world and the relationships that therein occur. In a very important sense it creates a view of the world we inhabit by asking, and investigating through, basic questions: The fundamental science of physics involves the study of matter and energy, and the various interactions between them. Simplistically speaking, everything around you and me is made up of matter; and contained in this matter is energy. This energy gives matter the capacity to do work: to be transformed from one state to another, to move from one point to the next, and so forth – essentially, matter and energy interact to manifest the natural world and the observable occurrences therein. So it follows, for instance, that a physicist will tell you that in burning firewood to prepare a meal, chemical energy (contained in the bonds that give wood its identifiable structure) is converted into the thermal energy that cooks the food and makes the cook feel heat. Wood is transformed into charcoal and gas, a different and irreversible state of wood. The water is absorbed by the food and also transformed into vapor (a different but reversible state of water). As can be seen from this example, the scope of physics covers a very broad region; from the smallest subatomic particles through clusters of galaxies to the origin of existence. Most professional physicists have to limit their attention to one or two fields of the discipline: A physicist's work typically involves experimental investigations and theoretical analysis, though some choose to specialize in only one of these.


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Be sure to consult a dictionary as some of the words below have other meanings not described here.
 
     1. lay, lie: Lay is a transitive verb that means “to cause to lie down”; “to put on or place in a particular position or state”; “to put or set down”. Lay requires an object and its principal parts are laid and laying. Lie is an intransitive verb meaning “to be or place oneself in a flat, horizontal, or recumbent position”; “to recline or rest in a flat position”. Lie does not take an object and its principal parts are lay, lain, and lying.

          Where did I lay those car keys before lying down.

          The ranch lies to the right of the lake.

     2. lead, led: As a verb, lead means “to guide or direct”; “to show the way by going before”. Led is the past tense of the verb lead. When both words are pronounced the same, then lead is a noun that is “a soft, malleable, and ductile metal”.

          The detective was led to the conclusion that the thief had to be a member of the board.

         “She will lead us to the lead pipes,” said the head plumber to his employees.

     3. learn, teach: Learn is a verb meaning “to gain knowledge or understanding through experience or study”; “to memorize”. Teach is a verb that means “to impart skill or knowledge to” ; “to give instruction”.

          To teach is also to learn.


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Their guilt

is not so very different from ours:

—who has not joyed in the arbitrary exercise of
power

or grasped for himself what might have been
another’s

and who has not used superior force in the
moment when he could,

(and who of us has not been tempted to these
things?)--

so, in their guilt,

the bare ferocity of teeth,

chest-thumping challenge and defiance,

the deafening clamor of their prayers

to a deity made in the image of their prejudice

which drowns the voice of conscience,

is mirrored our predicament

but on a social, massive, organized scale

which magnifies enormously

as the private dehabille of love

becomes obscene in orgies.


© Dennis Brutus

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