Prepositional Pronouns

Definition

A prepositional pronoun is to replace a noun that names a person or thing following a preposition, serving as the object of that preposition.

Standard prepositional pronouns

In the simplest case, prepositional pronouns are nearly identical to the subject pronouns, except in the first- and second-person singular form, mí replaces yo and ti replaces tú, respectively. Note that mí takes an accent to distinguish it from mi, the possessive adjective, which means my. Another exception is for the third-person singular, there is a pronoun for neuter: ello, meaning “it”.

Shortcut:

• 1st person: mí
• 2nd person: ti
• 3rd person:
  • singular: él, ella, ello
• plural forms are identical to the subject pronouns

Pronouns with con

Certain pronouns change their form when following the preposition con (“with”):

Complication:

• In the third-person forms, singular or plural, consigo is used when the subject of the sentence is the same as the object
• Otherwise, the full form, con él, con ella, con usted, con ello, con ellos, con ellas, con ustedes should be used.
• In programming language:

  if subject == object:
    consigo
  else:
    full form
  

Subject pronouns with prepositions

There are six exceptional prepositions that when preceding a pronoun, the subject form of the pronoun should be used. These are:

entre (between)     menos (except)
excepto (except)    salvo (except)
incluso (including) según (according to)

For example:

Juan esta entre tú y yo.
Todos bailan excepto él.

Reflexive pronouns following a preposition

Reflexive pronouns are similar to the English counterparts “myself”, “yourself”, “himself”. When following a preposition (e.g., a), they come in the following forms:

Note: singular or plural, the third-person is always sí.

Subject Pronouns

Definition

As its name suggests, a subject pronoun is used to replace the subject noun of a sentence.

In English there are seven subject pronouns: “I”, “you”, “he”, “she”, “it”, “we” and “they”. In Spanish, there are twelve: two pronouns take gender (nosotros and vosotros), and there are four pronouns for “you”.

NB: there is no “it” in Spanish.

Verb conjugation

The conjugated verb must agree in number(first-/second-/third-person) with the subject. This is true for -ar, -er and -ir verbs: