Determiners versus Pronouns

Many determiners are also pronouns, and it's important to understand the difference.

A determiner occurs at the beginning of a noun phrase and in some way qualifies the rest of the noun phrase. A determiner cannot exist alone:

• Those classic songs were great.
• My car is the big one.

A pronoun can take the place of a whole noun phrase:

• Those were great classic songs.
• Those were great.
• Mine is the big one.

Most determiners and pronouns are exactly the same word: either (determiner) and either (pronoun)

A few determiners and pronouns are close but not exactly the same: my (determiner) and mine (pronoun)

Here are some examples of determiners that have a pronoun equivalent:

determiners	pronouns
demonstratives
this, that these, those	this, that these, those
quantifiers
some, any	some, any
no	none
many/much	many/much
enough, several	enough, several
more, most	more, most
either, neither	either, neither
each	each
all, half, both	all, half, both
possessives (see full list below)
my/his etc	mine/his etc
interrogatives
what, which, whose	what, which, whose

Here is a full list of possessive determiners and pronouns:

determiners	pronouns
possessives
my	mine
your	yours
his her its	his hers its
our	ours
their	theirs