Pronoun

The definition of pronouns as a separate part of speech has caused many difficulties. More than once in the history of linguistics the very existence of pronouns as a part of speech has been denied.However,attempts of this kind have not proved succesful and in present day grammars. Both English and Russian pronouns are recognised as a part of speech.

Traditionally, pronouns are divided into: 1) personal (I, you, he, she, it; we, they); 2) possessive (my, your, his, her, its; our, their – mine, yours, his, hers, its; ours, theirs); 3) reflexive (myself, yourself, himself, herself, itself; ourselves, yourselves, themselves)1; 4) demonstrative (this/these, that/those, here, there, now, then, the same, such); 5) interrogative-relative (who, what, which, when, where, how, that); 6) reciprocal (one another, each other); 7) indefinite-negative (some, somebody, any, anybody, anyone, anything, another, other - no, no-one, none, nobody, nothing); 8) generalizing (all, each, every, everything, either, both); 9) quantitative (much, many, few, several, some).

Etymologically, the word pronoun means “a word used instead of a noun”. That is why many English grammarians (J. C. Nesfield, 1924; G. Curme, 1963; A. M. Clark, 1965) define the pronoun as a word used instead of a noun only. Thus, words such as my, your, etc., which are used in the function of an adjective, are not pronouns but adjectives; the words this/these, that/those may be either a pronoun (e.g. Who is this?) or an adjective (e.g. this man). This is a purely functional view of the problem. If we apply the same principle to other pronouns, we shall have to admit that to the class of pronouns we shall not be able to attribute many of the above-mentioned words. Being aware of such a situation, other linguists have defined the pronoun as a word used instead of a noun or an adjective; still others, as a word that is used instead of a noun, an adjective, a numeral, and an adverb. The word used should not be taken in its literal sense: here it means functioning as.

Pronouns are said to ‘deputize’ for other parts of speech: nouns (he, she, it, they); adjectives (his, her, its, their; this/these, that/those); numerals (many, much, few, several, some), and adverbs (here, there, thus).

Some linguists use the term substitute saying that pronouns substitute for or can replace other parts of speech. This is true in general, but there are pronouns which do not act as ‘deputies’ for other parts of speech. Consider, for example, the pronouns I, you, we. What nouns can they substitute for?

Semantically, I means the speaker; you, the addressee, and we, the speaker and the addressee. It is only in such sentences as I, John Smith, was born in 1970 that we can speak of substitution. However, it is a different kind substitution – a substitution whereby the pronoun is substituted for by a noun. Can we say that this in this book substitutes for an adjective? There is no such adjective which could be replaced by this? Nor can we say that the pronouns my, your, our are substitutes for adjectives. The same can be said about many other pronouns. Yet, the term substitute should not be rejected, for there are many pronouns (e.g. he, she, it; this/these, that/those; here, there; the same, such) which can be used as substitutes proper.

Case. In dealing with the category of case in pronouns, we must bear in mind that they need not in this respect be similar to nouns. Some of them may, and indeed do, have peculiarities which no noun shares.

Some pronouns distinguish between two cases which are best termed nominative and objective (instead of nominative we might say subjective) nom.I,he, she,(it),we,(you), they who. obj. me, him, her,(it),us,(you)them, whom. A number of pronouns have no category of case (something, anything, nothing, everything,some, any, no, my, his, mine, hers). A number of pronouns have a different case system,they distinguish between a common and a genitive case in the same way as the nouns, they are somebody, anybody, one, another and a few more.

The personal pronominal case-system has completely disintegrated in English, and in its place there have appeared four forms: the nominative form, the objective form, and the possessive form in two versions (the conjoint and the absolute). Case can only be found in indefinite and reciprocal pronouns, e.g. somebody vs. somebody’s; each other vs. each other’s.

Number. As regards number, it has only a very restricted field in pronouns: it is found in the pronouns this/ these, that/those, other/others. Personal pronouns have no grammatical category of number. We is not the plural form of I, but a separate word; they is not the plural form of he, or she, or it, but a separate word. There is no grammatical category of number either in the possessive pronouns: my-our; his, her, its-their, mine-ours, his, her, its-their, mine-ours, his, hers-theirs. As for reflexive pronouns, such forms as myself and ourselves cannot be treated as number forms in the same way as book and books: myself and ourselves stand in the same relationship as I and we.

There is no category of Gender. The pronouns he, she, it; his, her, its; himself, herself, itself are all separate words.

English pronouns of the same phonetic unit are used to express different meanings in different contexts. So the question arises if there is a case of polysemy that is different meaning of the same word or of homonymy, that is different words sounding alike. We may state the following cases:

that-demonstrative, that-relative.

who-interrogative, who-relative.

which-interrogative, which-relative.

Myself (and the other self-pronouns)-reflexive and the same pronouns intensive.

The demonstrative "that" has a plural form "those", where as the relative "that" remains unchanged in the plural. The "that" which remains unchanged in the plural cannot be the same word as the "that" which has the plural form "those. So we come to conclusion that there are two different pronouns: that-relative. that/those-demonstrative (paralled to "this").

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