The form taken by certain pronouns when they function as Object (Direct Object or Indirect Object) or after a preposition. E.g. them, me in The dog chased them, The baby smiled at me. Sometimes called the objective case. Contrasts with the nominative case, e.g. they, I.
Consider the examples below. What do the highlighted phrases add to the meanings?
He stroked the dog. [W2F-018 #175]
They carried mugs of beer. [W2F-018 #140]
These phrases tell us who or what is being 'verbed', i.e. who is undergoing the action denoted by the verbs, in these situations: the dog is stroked, the mugs of beer are carried. Without these phrases, our examples would be incomplete.
Pronouns are one of the eight word classes in the National Curriculum. Some linguists would treat pronouns as a subclass of nouns, and there are some good reasons for that, but we adhere to the National Currciulum specifications.
Pronouns can sometimes replace a noun in a sentence:
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