What is An Indefinite Pronoun
There are times when we’re speaking when we don’t want to or don’t need to
mention a specific item or a specific person.
For example:
“Do you need anything from the shop?”
“Can you see anyone in the park?”
“Yes, I can see someone in the park.”
“Can you get me something from the shop?”
In these sentences, the ‘anything, anyone, someone and something’ are
unknown. The listener only knows whether we’re talking about a thing or a
person - the rest is a complete mystery. These words refer to any person or any
thing instead of a specific person or a specific thing.
An indefinite pronoun is a pronoun that doesn’t refer to anything or anyone
specifically. We usually form singular indefinite pronouns with words like ‘any,
every, some, and no.’ In the sentence ‘anyone can drive a car,’ ‘anyone’ refers
to any person - not one specific person or group of people in particular. It isn’t
important to know exactly who we are referring to in this sentence. The pronoun
is indefinite because it doesn’t define a person like the definite personal
pronouns, for example, ‘I, he, she, it, they, you, and we.’
The indefinite pronoun ‘anyone’ doesn’t refer to any specific person. It is a
pronoun that refers to any person. The pronoun is vague and could refer to
absolutely anybody. In contrast, a definite pronoun like ‘he’ refers to one
specific person - the person is clearly mentioned and known before the
pronoun ‘he’ is used.
What Are Indefinite Pronouns Used For?
We use indefinite pronouns when we want to talk about something or someone
without specifically mentioning who or what we’re talking about. Indefinite
pronouns that end in ‘body’ or ‘one’ refer to people and indefinite pronouns
that end in ‘thing’ refer to objects. Indefinite pronouns help us talk about people
or things in general instead of specific things or people.
Indefinite pronouns can refer to groups of people or things like ‘everyone’ and
‘everything,’ and they can refer to one person or a thing like ‘someone’ and
‘something.’ It’s important to remember that some indefinite pronouns refer to a
group but are still considered singular because the one group is singular.
How to Use Indefinite Pronouns
We can use indefinite pronouns in positive and negative sentences and
questions. We use them when we don’t know exactly who or what we are
referring to and we don’t need to be specific. They are placed in the position of a
noun and refer to something or someone we don’t know, all or every person or
thing in a group, or any person or thing (it doesn’t matter which one). We use
‘no one’ ‘nobody’ and ‘nothing’ when the person or thing is not there.
For example:
‘I can see someone over there’
‘I don’t see anybody in the pool’
‘No one is at school today’
‘Can you get me something from the shops please?’
What Type of Pronoun is Indefinite?
Indefinite pronouns are all pronouns that do not identify a single noun or plural
noun specifically. They are vague pronouns that do not refer to an exact person,
place or thing. Indefinite pronouns can refer to any person or thing, every person
or thing or no person and no thing. Pronouns that begin with words like ‘every-,’
‘some-,’ ‘any-’ and ‘no-’ indicate a non-specific person or thing. These are
words like ‘everyone’ ‘someone’ ‘anyone’ and ‘no one.’
Indefinite Pronouns List
Everyone
Everybody
Someone
Somebody
Something
No one
Nobody
None
Several
Some
Each
Everything
Nothing
Anything
Anybody
Anyone
All
Another
Any
Each
Either
Both
Many
Few
Indefinite Pronouns Examples
The most common examples of indefinite pronouns are words like ‘someone,
somebody, something, anyone, anybody, anything, everyone, everything and
no one, and nothing.’
When learning about indefinite pronouns, we must focus on using the correct
grammar form with the indefinite pronoun. Indefinite pronouns can be
separated into singular indefinite pronouns and plural indefinite pronouns.
Some indefinite pronouns can be both singular or plural depending on the
context.
For example, ‘none’ can be either singular or plural. We can say ‘none of them
is kind,’ which means ‘not one of them is kind’ and we can say ‘none of them are
kind’ which means ‘not any of them are kind.’ However, some other indefinite
pronouns are either strictly singular or plural. ‘Everyone’ is a singular
indefinite pronoun because it refers to one group. “Everyone is excited about the
party this weekend.” And ‘both’ is always plural because it refers to two things or
people. “Both are possible answers to this question.”
If you struggle to identify which indefinite pronoun is singular and which
indefinite pronoun is plural then don’t panic - it can be tricky to figure it out. The
best thing you can do is familiarize yourself with singular and plural indefinite
pronouns and keep practicing on your own.
Singular Indefinite Pronouns
Singular indefinite pronouns refer to a single group of people or things, a
person or a thing. Remember that a group of something is still singular because
the focus is on the group and not the individuals in the group. ‘Everyone’ is
singular in the same ways that ‘family’ is singular. There may be many people in
the family, however, there is only one family group.
A singular indefinite pronoun must follow the same rules as third-person
singular pronouns (he, she and it). They have the same subject-verb
agreement as third-person singular pronouns.
For example:
“He is very kind.”
“Everyone is very kind.”
In the above example, ‘everyone’ is a singular indefinite pronoun that must take
‘is.’ The third-person singular pronouns, like ‘he,’ also take ‘is.’ Therefore, a rule
to remember when constructing sentences with singular indefinite pronouns is
that singular indefinite pronouns take the third-person singular form of the
verb.
Singular Indefinite Pronouns Examples
Some indefinite pronouns are only ever singular. These include:
Everyone
Everybody
Everything
Anyone
Anybody
Anything
Someone
Somebody
Something
Another
Less
Little
Neither
Either
Enough
No one
Nothing
Nobody
One
Plural Indefinite Pronouns
Some indefinite pronouns are always plural. These indefinite pronouns refer to
more than one thing or person. We must follow the same grammar rules as
third-person plural pronouns. The third-person plural pronouns are ‘you, we,
and they.’
For example:
“Both are correct.”
“They are correct.”
In the above example, we can see that ‘they’ and ‘both’ take the same form of the
verb. We CANNOT say ‘both is correct.’ ‘Both’ always refers to more than one
thing because it means ‘two.’ We use ‘both’ when we mean two people or two
things but we don’t specify which two people or two things.
Plural Indefinite Pronouns Examples
Both
Many
Others
Few
Fewer
Several
Indefinite Pronouns That Can Be Singular or Plural
Some indefinite pronouns can be either singular or plural. Their singularity or
plurality relies on context. If a speaker says ‘none of them are interesting,’ then
they are saying ‘not any of them are interesting.’ If the speaker says ‘none of them
is interesting,’ then they are saying ‘not one of them is interesting.’ Both of these
sentences structures have the same meaning. ‘None’ can be used as a singular
indefinite pronoun and plural indefinite pronoun without the meaning of the
sentences changing. This is true for all singular/plural indefinite pronouns. The
special thing about them is that they can follow both singular and plural
pronoun grammar rules.
Examples of Pronouns That Can Be Singular or Plural:
Some
None
Most
Any
All
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