02-May-2008, 03:58
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 Re: What should I use?reflexive pronoun (themselves) or personal object pronoun(them)
Quote:
Originally Posted by ongetz  'The Eskimos wear animal fur to protect them against the cold weather.'
Above sentence, 'them' means 'the eskimos'. However, why should we use pronoun them, not reflexive pronoun 'themselves'? Should we? You can use either. .
Is it impossible to use themselves instead of them?If we answer this kind of question in a test, how can we know if what do they mean if it can mean in two ways??I mean, if we can use either themselves or them..I do think that, in a test, you would be given "them" and "themselves" to choose in a sentence like yours.
Why can't we use them in the second sentence??
I suggested you'd better use "themselves". As long as the subject (Eskimos) and the object (themselves) are the same you can use reflexive pronoun.
THEM is a personal pronoun which is the object form of they and the object of the verb "protect".
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Last edited by banderas; 02-May-2008 at 04:05.
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