PRONOUN A traditional
PART OF SPEECH that is typically used as a substitute for a noun or noun phrase. In contemporary grammatical theory, pronouns are sometimes viewed as a subclass of nouns. They constitute a closed class, in that few new pronouns ever enter a language.
Subclasses
There are eight subclasses:
PERSONAL PRONOUNS (
I,
we,
they, etc.); possessive pronouns (
my/mine,
our/ours,
their/theirs, etc.);
REFLEXIVE PRONOUNS (
myself,
ourselves,
themselves, etc.);
DEMONSTRATIVE PRONOUNS (
this,
that,
these,
those);
RECIPROCAL PRONOUNS (
each other,
one another); interrogative pronouns (
who,
what, etc.); relative pronouns (
who,
that, etc.); indefinite pronouns (
any,
somebody,
none, etc.). Some forms belong to more than one subclass:
who is an interrogative pronoun in
Who is that? and a relative pronoun in
the child who did that … Some may belong to other parts of speech:
any is a pronoun in
Do you want any? and a determiner (like the definite article, introducing a noun phrase) in
Do you want any money? The possessive pronouns have two sets of forms: one strictly speaking a determiner (
my in
You have my book), the other a pronoun (
mine in
That book is mine).
Form
Some of the sets of pronouns have distinctions in
PERSON,
NUMBER,
CASE, or
GENDER. Personal pronouns have distinctions in: person (
I,
you,
she); number (
I,
we); gender (in the third-person singular only:
he,
she,
it); case (subjective
I, objective
me). Possessives may be viewed as genitives of personal pronouns and make similar distinctions, as do reflexives (which do not have case). Demonstratives have distinctions in number (
this,
that versus
these,
those) and in physical or metaphorical distance (
this,
these are nearer to speaker than
that,
those). The reciprocals have genitives (
each other's,
one another's), as do the indefinites ending in
-body and
-one (such as
somebody's,
anyone's). Finally, the interrogatives and relatives have distinctions in gender (personal
who and normally non-personal
what for interrogatives, personal
who and non-personal
which for relatives), and in case (subjective
who, objective
whom, genitive
whose).
Function
In contemporary grammar, the pronoun by itself usually constitutes a noun phrase, though with certain restrictions some pronouns may be modified:
something colourful;
those who know;
what else. As the main or only word in the noun phrase, it has the same set of syntactic functions as a noun. Many of the pronouns have important discourse functions. They contribute to cohesion in discourse by referring back to a previous unit in anaphora (
he in
While Matthew was in Jerusalem,
he joined a peculiar cult) or forward to a subsequent unit in cataphora (
Although she is studying hard,
Deborah finds time to help me). Some of the pronouns are used in deixis to refer directly to persons or things in the situation of the discourse:
I for the speaker or writer and
you for the person or persons addressed, and
it in
Pick it up (where the thing referred to by
it is not previously named). See
GENERIC PRONOUN,
RASTA TALK.
