Editing English grammar (section)

====Personal====
{{Main|English personal pronouns}}
The personal pronouns of modern standard English are presented in the table above. They are ''I, you, she, he, it, we'', and ''they''. The personal pronouns are so-called not because they apply to persons (which other pronouns also do), but because they participate in the [[Grammatical person|system of grammatical person]] (1st, 2nd, 3rd).

The second-person forms such as ''you'' are used with both singular and plural reference. In the Southern United States, [[y'all]] (you all) is used as a plural form, and various other phrases such as ''you guys'' are used in other places. An archaic set of second-person pronouns used for singular reference is ''[[thou]], thee, thyself, thy, thine'', which are still used in religious services and can be seen in older works, such as Shakespeare's—in such texts, the ''you'' set of pronouns are used for plural reference, or with singular reference as a formal [[T–V distinction|V-form]]. ''You'' can also be used as an [[indefinite pronoun]], referring to a person in general (see [[generic you|generic ''you'']]), compared to the more formal alternative, ''[[one (pronoun)|one]]'' (reflexive ''oneself'', possessive ''one's'').

The third-person singular forms are differentiated according to the gender of the referent. For example, ''she'' is used to refer to a woman, sometimes a female animal, and sometimes an object to which feminine characteristics are attributed, such as a ship or a country. A man, and sometimes a male animal, is referred to using ''he''. In other cases, ''it'' can be used. (See [[Gender in English]].) The word ''it'' can also be used as a [[dummy subject]], concerning abstract ideas like time, weather, etc., or a [[Dummy pronoun#Dummy objects|dummy object]] of a verb or preposition.

The third-person form ''they'' is used with both plural and singular [[referent]]s. Historically, [[Singular they|singular ''they'']] was restricted to [[quantifier (linguistics)|quantificational]] constructions such as ''Each employee should clean their desk'' and referential cases where the referent's gender was unknown. However, it is increasingly used when the referent's gender is irrelevant or when the referent is neither male nor female.

The possessive determiners such as ''my'' are used as determiners together with nouns, as in ''my old man'', ''some of his friends''. The second possessive forms like ''mine'' are used when they do not qualify a noun: as pronouns, as in ''mine is bigger than yours'', and as predicates, as in ''this one is mine''. Note also the construction ''a friend of mine'' (meaning "someone who is my friend"). See [[English possessive]] for more details.