Legal Writing Handbook
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I. Writing In The Law Office (cont.)
B. Common Grammar Problems (cont.)
Nouns stand for a person, place, or thing. Pronouns stand for nouns. English nouns and pronouns have three cases: nominative (subject), genitive (possessive), and objective (direct or indirect objects or objects of prepositions). The nominative and objective of nouns is always the same. Pronouns can have different forms for nominative and objective. There are two grammatical numbers in English: singular and plural.
| Nominative singular |
Nominative plural |
Possessive singular |
Possessive plural |
Objective singular |
Objective plural |
| man | men | man's | men's | man | men |
| house | houses | house's | houses' | house | houses |
| duck | ducks | duck's | ducks' | duck | ducks |
| I | my | me | |||
| we | our | us | |||
| you | you | your | your | you | you |
| it | its | it | |||
| she | her | her | |||
| he | his | him | |||
| who | whose | whom | |||
| they | their | them |
The nominative is used for the subject of a sentence. The subject is the one who performs the action described by the verb. The objective is the one for whom or for which (indirect object) or to whom or to which (direct object) the action is performed.
You identify the subject, direct object, and indirect object of a sentence by its position in the sentence:
The man gave the boy a goat.
He give it to him.
He gave him a goat.
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