Indefinite Pronouns | The parts of speech | Grammar | Khan Academy

Hey grammarians! Today, I want to talk about the idea of the indefinite pronoun, which looks kind of complicated, but really just does what it says on the tin. An indefinite pronoun is just that: it's indefinite, undefined, uncertain. These are pronouns that we use when we're not being especially specific. Words like any, anybody, each, everyone, nobody, anytime.

I need to remember what words fall into this category of indefinite pronouns; I just think of the song "Everybody Needs Somebody to Love," originally by Solomon Burke and then later made famous by the Rolling Stones and the Blues Brothers.

So, a cool thing about indefinite pronouns—actually, there are a couple. Number one, they can be used as both subjects or objects in a sentence. So, if you said to me, "David, do you want pizza?" I could respond, "Yes, please. I'd love some," using it as an object. Or, equally plausibly, I could say, "Yes, please. Some would be great," using it as a subject.

Another really cool thing about indefinite pronouns is that the words "both," "neither," and "either" retain the dual. They are some of the only words in English that refer to only two things. So, these three pronouns are actually a little bit less indefinite than most indefinite pronouns because they refer to a set of two things. So, if someone asked me, "Do you like mangoes or cherries more?" I could say, "I like both equally," referring to the cherries and the mangoes at the same time.

And this is really strange because, in English, this dual case doesn't really exist anymore except for in very limited amounts. English distinguishes between whether or not there's one of something and more than one of something, but this is one of the very few cases where we ever distinguish between more than one of something and specifically two of something. There are not a whole lot of words in English that refer to that. Uh, so I think that's really cool.

The third cool thing about indefinite pronouns is that they're usually treated as singular—usually. So, words like "both," "neither," and "either" are obviously plural, but there are some that are a little bit fuzzier. For example, in the sentence "Nobody was home," we used the word "was," the singular form, even though that "nobody" could refer to multiple people, or it's really referring to the absence of anyone. Similarly, in the sentence "Everybody knows that I love onions," we use the word "knows," just like we'd say "he knows," "she knows," "it knows." So, that's the singular form of that verb, even though the idea of "everybody" would seem to refer to more than one person.

The indefinite pronoun that we use to refer to "everybody" usually conjugates the third person singular form of verbs. Usually, let's, uh, get to one of the weirder examples, though, because sometimes the context can carry you along into something that might seem a little quote-unquote ungrammatical, but really reflects the way that language is used today.

And so, although you might say "everyone you know is looking at me," here's an example from Garner's Modern American Usage, which is one of the several car-sized books I'm using to construct this grammar course: "Everyone was crouched behind furniture to surprise me, but I already knew they were there."

And you can see in the beginning of the sentence we say "everyone was," but then in the second part of the sentence we say "they were," and we're using "they" to refer to "everyone." So how can this be? This doesn't seem grammatical, but as Garner says, sometimes meaning rather than grammar governs agreement.

Is this grammatical? Yes, in that it makes sense. Does it adhere concretely and in an iron-clad way to these rules that we've established? No, but language is kind of messy in that way. Sometimes the meaning of the sentence, the fact that here "everyone" refers to multiple people, is going to override the rules that are previously established, and that's okay.

As long as you're making sense, so relative pronouns are usually singular unless the context drags them into the realm of the plural. So, like their name implies, sometimes indefinite pronouns can be a little indefinite.

All right, here are the three cool things about indefinite pronouns: number one, they can be used as subjects or objects; number two, both, neither, and either retain the dual form, which is super weird; and number three, indefinite pronouns are usually treated as singular.

Usually, I know that's confusing, but I have faith in you. You can learn anything!

Dave, out.