- [Voiceover] All right, so grammarians, I want to
talk to you about the difference between
subject and object pronouns, but before
we do that, let's start off with a little
primer on what subjects and objects actually are,
Just generally for our grammatical purposes.
In grammar, the subject is the part of the sentence
or clause that does a thing.
The subject does a thing.
The object, on the other hand, is the
thing that is acted on, has stuff done to it,
so the object has stuff done to it.
The subject acts, the object is acted upon,
let's give an example.
In the sentence, Reina wrote an e-mail,
the subject of the sentence, the doer of the thing
is Reina, right, as the subject.
The thing she is doing is writing an e-mail,
so Reina wrote an e-mail.
E-mail is the object of the verb wrote.
It is the object of the sentence.
Now, there are cases when a sentence
doesn't have an object.
For example, we could just say
Reina wrote.
It doesn't have an object, it's just
Reina's the subject, and then there is no object.
This is what we call intransitive usage,
but you don't need to write that down or anything.
Now, understanding the relationship
between e-mail and Reina enables you
to understand how subject and object pronouns are used.
When we're subbing out these nouns for pronouns,
we can figure out which ones we have to use,
because pronouns have different forms
depending on whether or not they are subjects or objects.
Reina is a girl's name, and if we know that Reina is a girl,
we can refer to her as either she or her.
These are two of the feminine pronouns.
One of these is a subject, and one of them is an object.
She is the subject form, and her is the object form.
If we wanted to rewrite this sentence,
speaking of Reina, we would say,
she wrote an e-mail.
Not, her wrote an e-mail, you see.
Because her is the object pronoun,
and therefore is the thing that,
the object pronoun has stuff done to it,
as opposed to the doer of things.
She is the subject form, it's the doer.
For e-mail it's easy, this just becomes it in all cases.
The subject form, and the object form are the same.
Let's do a couple more examples
just to shore this up so you see what I mean.
I give her a present.
Right now, I is the subject, her is the object.
Subject, object, but what if we switched it?
What would it look like then?
Well it wouldn't be her give I a present,
because since we're switching the subject and the object,
we're gonna be switching the pronouns that we use too,
so it would be, she gave me a present.
Now, she is the
subject form of her,
and me is the subject, is the object form, excuse me,
me is the object form of I.
Get a little period in there.
Same thing with they and he.
They showed
him a guitar.
Why not?
They is the subject, and him is the object.
Let's give it the old switcheroo.
He showed
them a guitar.
Now, we do the switcheroo, him becomes he,
so we go from the object form which is him
to the subject from which is he,
and then they, the subject form becomes them,
the object form.
Now when it comes to you and it,
you're in luck, because the subject and object
forms of these are the same, so subject
equals object,
with you and it.
I could say you give it a present
just as easily as I could say it gives you a present.
I didn't realize I changed this to the past tense.
She gives me a present.
There we go, that's better.
That's the difference between a subject
and an object pronoun.
You can learn anything.
David out.