Level: beginner
The indefinite pronouns are:
| anybody | everybody | nobody | somebody |
| anyone | everyone | no one | someone |
| anything | everything | nothing | something |
We use indefinite pronouns to refer to people or things without saying exactly who or what they are. We use pronouns ending in -body or -one for people, and pronouns ending in -thing for things:
Everybody enjoyed the concert.
I opened the door but there was no one at home.
It was a very clear day. We could see everything.
- Indefinite pronouns 1
We use a singular verb after an indefinite pronoun:
Everybody loves Sally.
Everything was ready for the party.
When we refer back to an indefinite pronoun, we normally use a plural pronoun:
Everybody enjoyed the concert. They stood up and clapped.
I will tell somebody that dinner is ready. They have been waiting a long time.
| Be careful! |
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In negative clauses, we use pronouns with no-, not pronouns with any-:
We do not use another negative in a clause with nobody, no one or nothing:
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- Indefinite pronouns 2
We can add 's to an indefinite pronoun to make a possessive:
They were staying in somebody's house.
Is this anybody's coat?
We use else after indefinite pronouns to refer to other people or things:
All the family came, but no one else.
If Michael can't come, we'll ask somebody else.
I think this is somebody else's coat.
Comments
The school is closing on next sunday.
The school closes on next Sunday.
Those above two questions are grammaticaly correct or not?
Hello Md.Habibullah,
We don't use the preposition 'on' after the verb 'close' in this way. You could say 'The school is closing (or 'closes') next Sunday'. Our talking about the future page explains the difference in meaning, but briefly the present simple implies you're speaking about a timetable whereas the present continuous speaks about an arranged event. In the end, both mean pretty much the same here.
All the best,
Kirk
The LearnEnglish Team
It is I who am to blame.In this sentence discuss all the parts of speech.Is there any use of anticedent here?What are the cases of anticedents?
Hello Md.Habibullah,
I'm afraid we don't provide the service of parsing full sentences, but if you search the internet for 'free sentence parser' there are several that work quite well.
What I can say is that 'I' is the antecedent of the relative pronoun 'who' here. 'It is I' is a copula so both 'It' and 'I' are subjects (technically 'I' is a subject complement).
All the best,
Kirk
The LearnEnglish Team
Hello.I have two questions,can we detect the person of indefinite pronouns like everybody,someone,anyone?
Everyone should be able to serve their county no matter who they are. In this sentence the why we are using their? We supposed to use his because it takes singular pronoun. Finally please clarify number of anticedents.Thanks in advance.
Hello Md.Habibullah,
Indefinite pronouns but their very nature do not refer to known individuals. They either refer to groups of unspecified people ('everyone') or to unspecified individuals ('someone'). They have no identified gender so we do not know if, for example, 'someone' refers to a man or a woman.
In your example 'their' is used as a singular pronoun. When we do not know the gender of the person we are talking about we can use 'he or she' or we can use 'they' (in whatever grammatical form is required). 'They' takes a plural verb but has a singular meaning here. For example, to talk about a doctor without specifying if it is a man or a woman we can say 'You should go to see a doctor about your cough. They'll give you something to make you feel better.'
We could use 'he or she' in your example but the style is much poorer:
Best wishes,
Peter
The LearnEnglish Team
Good evening
I have a question
It is correct I say : anybody comes
Hello katjuq,
Yes, that is grammatically fine. Of course, it's only a phrase and needs to be used in an appropriate context, probably as part of a larger sentence.
Best wishes,
Peter
The LearnEnglish Team
Everybody,anybody,somebody is they are 3rd person singular number?Explain if or not.Thanks.
Hello Md.Habibullah,
Indefinite pronouns take a singular verb, i.e. we say 'everybody has a mother', though we often use a plural possessive adjective (e.g. 'everybody loves their mother') because we use 'they' in its various forms when speaking about someone whose gender is not specified or is unknown.
All the best,
Kirk
The LearnEnglish Team
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