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Noun: the Category of Gender. There is a peculiarly regular contradiction between the presentation of gender in English by theoretical treatises and practical manuals. Whereas theoretical treatises define the gender subcategorization of English nouns as purely lexical or “semantic”, practical manuals of English grammar do invariably include the description of the English gender in their subject matter of immediate instruction. The category of gender is expressed in English by the obligatory correlation of nouns with thepersonal pronouns of the third person. These serve as specific gender classifiers of nouns, being potentially reflected on each entry of the noun in speech. The category of gender is strictly oppositional. It is formed by two oppositions related to each other on a hierarchical basis. One opposition functions in the whole set of nouns, dividing them intoperson (human) nouns and non-person (non-human) nouns. The other opposition functions in thesubset of person nouns only, dividing them into masculine nouns and feminine nouns. Thus, the first, general opposition can be referred to as the upper opposition in the category of gender, while thesecond, partial opposition can be referred to as the lower opposition in this category.As a result of the double oppositional correlation, a specific system of three genders arises, whichis somewhat misleadingly represented by the traditional terminology: the neuter (i.e. non-person)gender, the masculine (i.e. masculine person) gender, the feminine (i.e. feminine person) gender. Grammarians classify pronouns into several types, including the personal pronoun, the demonstrative pronoun, the interrogative pronoun, the indefinite pronoun, the relative pronoun, the reflexive pronoun, and the intensive pronoun.

Personal Pronouns

A personal pronoun refers to a specific person or thing and changes its form to indicate person, number, gender, and case.

Subjective Personal Pronouns

A subjective personal pronoun indicates that the pronoun is acting as the subject of the sentence. The subjective personal pronouns are "I," "you," "she," "he," "it," "we," "you," "they."

In the following sentences, each of the highlighted words is a subjective personal pronoun and acts as the subject of the sentence: