Indefinite Pronouns
Throughout this course, I’m trying to teach you grammar, but also the subtleties of the English language. The highlights and unique ideas. I do this to give a deeper understanding of the language.
To give you the ability to pretend you’ve been English all your life 😄 Because you understand more than just some grammar rules and how to spell a few words.
You’ve seen remarks. You’ve seen contractions. Now comes the third bit: indefinite pronouns.
They start off pretty normal, but near the end of the chapter you see some special uses for them in English.
Indefinite pronouns
Indefinite pronouns replace a specific noun for one that is vague.
When is this useful? If you don’t know the specific thing to which you want to refer. Or the thing you’re referring has many parts, so it’s way quicker to use a single pronoun.
Let’s say you have to give a presentation. You stand in front of a group of people. But you don’t know them, and certainly don’t know their names. How do you address them? “Hello everyone” or “I welcome you all”.
They can replace a person, thing or place. They can refer to all of them, an undefined part of them, or none of them.
| - | Person | Thing | Place |
|---|---|---|---|
| All | everyone everybody | everything | everywhere |
| Part (affirmative) | someone somebody | something | somewhere |
| Part (negative) | anyone anybody | anything | anywhere |
| None | no one nobody | nothing | nowhere |
Which one to use depends on the type of sentence: affirmative or negative.
Usually, this replaces a countable noun by an uncountable one. But not always. A phrase like “we were two nobodies” is accepted as meaning “we were worth almost nothing”. But a phrase like “I have two everythings” means nothing.
Affirmative
Affirmative sentences are when something is true. (Or at least expected to be true.) When something is happening, someone is present, etcetera.
- Everybody aced that test.
- Nobody is sleeping at the moment.
- I looked everywhere for that book.
- He thinks it must be somewhere around here.
You can use a negative indefinite pronoun in an affirmative way. But only if it’s very close to every in its meaning. You should be able to replace “any” with “every” without changing the meaning.
You may invite anyone. She would give anything for that opportunity.
Negative
Negative sentences are when something is not true. (Or you don’t expect it to be true.) It’s not happening, not working, not available, not possible.
- He doesn’t have anything to eat.
- She hasn’t gone anywhere the past few months.
- He couldn’t find anybody to work with.
Questions
Which of these do you think is used for questions? Affirmative or negative?
Well … it depends.
On what? Your assumption. Do you expect the answer to be true or false? Do you have any clue about the answer?
Did you see anyone when you were in the park?
We really don’t know and are curious. So we use the negative version.
Have you lost something?
You only ask this if you already think somebody lost something. You see them searching or looking around. So we use the affirmative version.
If you’re really certain about the answer you expect, you negate the sentence. (Add a not into it.)
“Did you not eat anything yesterday?”
We expect a no. This sentence is typically spoken if someone looks at your body and thinks you haven’t eaten in a while!
Haven’t you lost something?
We expect a yes. This sentence is typically spoken by someone who has already seen that you lost something, but is waiting for you to realize this 😉
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