Third person singular pronouns are divided into three categories: female, male, and neuter or inanimate.

The female pronoun consists of different forms for subject (5a) and object (5b) uses. Typically, these are used when referring to female humans, but also animals, especially when regarded as individuals (5c).

The male pronoun also has different forms for subject (6a) and object (6b), and is also used with reference to animals (6c). However, something that is not common with the female pronoun is that the male pronoun is also used with reference to inanimate objects (6d) or humans whose gender is not specified (6e), or groups of people or institutions where the focus is on the group as a whole and not the individuals (6f).

For the sake of gender neutral reference to people, the male and female pronouns are often used in combination (7).

Regarding reference to inanimate objects, the neuter pronoun dit it is used, with an invariable form regardless of syntactic role. While it is usually used for singular referents (8a), it can also be used with plural referents (8b) and referents that are unmarked for number (8c). Another important use of dit is as an empty subject pronoun (8d), that does not refer to an actual entity but just fills the role of syntactic subject. Sentence initial usage in particular often tends to result in the contracted form dis it's (as in 8e) instead of the seperate dit is it is, although it does not occur exclusively at the beginning of a sentence, such as (8f). The contracted form is generally accepted in written language.

A slightly more controversial use, especially in written Afrikaans, is in demonstrative constructions with prepositions (9a-c) – in Standard Afrikaans, such a construction would usually entail a concatenated form with daar there (9d-f). This usage is so strongly proscribed, however (e.g. in Combrink and Spies 1986:61 and Van der Merwe and Ponelis 1982:46), that it does not occur very frequently in written Afrikaans (Kirsten 2016:183).

There is an interesting competition between dit and hy/hom, especially in spoken Afrikaans. The use of hom in (6d) with an inanimate referent sometimes performs the same function as dit as it is used in (8a). Scholars have been writing about this phenomenon, and the competition in particular, for several decades. While some propose that hy/hom is being used increasingly with reference to inanimate objects (Bouman and Pienaar 1924:74; Ponelis 1979:70, 585). Van der Merwe (1997:27) points out that there is still not observable change in the alternation between the two forms. This could be attributed to some division in functional load, where one form is preferred in certain contexts and the other in other contexts. The different contributing factors that have been proposed until now include:

• With reference to living (but not animate) objects, such as trees, hy/hom would be used (Bouman and Pienaar 1924:179).
• When a lifeless or inanimate object is used as a tool or instrument, hy/hom would be used (Van der Merwe 1997:29).
• Where there is movement involved, hy/hom would be used (Van der Merwe 1997:29).
• When objects are personified, for instance toy animals, hy/hom would be used (Bouman and Pienaar 1924:179; Malherbe 1917:78; Van der Merwe 1997:30).
• When speakers refer to an object on a daily basis, they would often prefer hy/hom(Van der Merwe 1997:30).
• With abstract referents, especially those that cannot be quantified, dit would be used (Langenhoven 1926:66; Müller 2003:692; Van der Merwe 1997:30).
• With reference to a type or a category, dit would be used, but with reference to a specific object, hy/hom would be used (Van der Merwe 1997:31).
• The highly polysemic nature of dit could make hy/hom a more attractive option sometimes (Van der Merwe 1997:32).

The third person plural pronoun hulle they/them is used with an invariable form as syntactic subject (10a), object (10b), or in a PP (10c). This pronoun is not only used with reference to humans or animate referents, but can also be used when referring to inanimate objects (10e).