73. Pronouns may be grouped in five classes:--

73. Pronouns may be grouped in five classes:--

(1) Personal pronouns, which distinguish person by their form (Sec. 76).

(2) Interrogative pronouns, which are used to ask questions about persons or things.

(3) Relative pronouns, which relate or refer to a noun, pronoun, or other word or expression, and at the same time connect two statements They are also called conjunctive.

(4) Adjective pronouns, words, primarily adjectives, which are classed as adjectives when they modify nouns, but as pronouns when they stand for nouns.

(5) Indefinite pronouns, which cannot be used as adjectives, but stand for an indefinite number of persons or things.

Numerous examples of all these will be given under the separate classes hereafter treated.

PERSONAL PRONOUNS.

[Sidenote: _Person in grammar._]

74. Since pronouns stand for persons as well as names, they must represent the person talking, the person or thing spoken to, and the person or thing talked about.

This gives rise to a new term, "the distinction of _person_."

[Sidenote: Person _of nouns_.]

75. This distinction was not needed in discussing nouns, as nouns have the _same form_, whether representing persons and things spoken to or spoken of. It is evident that a noun could not represent the person speaking, even if it had a special form.

From analogy to pronouns, which have _forms_ for person, nouns are sometimes spoken of as first or second person by their _use_; that is, if they are in apposition with a pronoun of the first or second person, they are said to have person by agreement.

But usually nouns represent something spoken of.

[Sidenote: _Three persons of pronouns._]