Determiners Page 2

Pronouns and Determiners

DETERMINERS PAGE 2/3

There is considerable overlap between the determiner class and the subclass of pronouns. Many words can be both:

Pronoun	Determiner
This is a very boring book	This book is very boring
That's an excellent film	That film is excellent

As this table shows, determiners always come before a noun, but pronouns are more independent than this. They function in much the same way as nouns, and they can be replaced by nouns in the sentences above:

This is a very boring book	~Ivanhoe is a very boring book
That's an excellent film	~Witness is an excellent film

On the other hand, when these words are determiners, they cannot be replaced by nouns:

This book is very boring	~*Ivanhoe book is very boring
That film is excellent	~*Witness film is excellent

The personal pronouns (I, you, he, etc) cannot be determiners. This is also true of the possessive pronouns (mine, yours, his/hers, ours, and theirs). However, these pronouns do have corresponding forms which are determiners:

Possessive Pronoun	Determiner
The white car is mine	My car is white
Yours is the blue coat	Your coat is blue
The car in the garage is his/hers	His/her car is in the garage
David's house is big, but ours is bigger	Our house is bigger than David's
Theirs is the house on the left	Their house is on the left

The definite and the indefinite articles can never be pronouns. They are always determiners.

In each of the folowing sentences, indicate whether the highlighted word is a determiner or a pronoun: