Pronoun. Its categories

4) Meaning: the categorial meaning of indication (deixis);

5) Form: the narrow sets of various status with the corresponding formal properties of categorial changeability and word-building; categories – number, case, gender (?)

6) Function: Functions as the subject (he does), object (tell him), attribute (those days, my dog), predicative (it’s me), adverbial modifier ( let’s do somehow); combinability with verbs, nouns

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 successful and in present-day grammars, both English and Russian, pronouns are recognised as a part of speech. This in itself seems to prove that they indeed have some peculiar features which cannot be " explained away". Thus, the pronouns I, you, he, etc., though pointing to things (in the widest sense of the word) and in so far resembling nouns, cannot as a rule be modified by adjectives. (Phrases like poor me appear to be rare.) These pronouns differ from nouns in that they cannot be connected with any article, or modified by a prepositional phrase, etc. We will therefore start on the assumption that pronouns do constitute a separate part of speech, and proceed to investigate their grammatical properties

Pronouns – parts of speech which have the categorical meaning of indication. Pronouns, though pointing to things, can’t be modified by adj., can’t be connected to any articles or modified by a prepositional phrase

Classification (Western approach)

1)Personal – refer to a specific person or thing and changes its form to indicate person, number, gender, case. Are divided into:

· Subjective (indicates that the pronoun forms as a subject) #I, you

· Objective (functions as an object) # me, you

· Possessive (functions as a marker of possession and defines who owns a particular object or person #my, your, min

2) Demonstrative – point to and identify a noun or a pronoun # this, that (sg), Those, these (pl)

3) Interrogative – are used to ask questions #who, what = the compounds with –ever-

4) Relative- are used to link one phrase or clause to another phrase or clause #whom, that, who + compound whichever

5) Indefinite – refer to identifiable but not specified person or thing. Convey the idea of “all, some, none” # all, another, anybody, several, some, none

6) Reflexive – are used to refer back to the subject of the clause or the sentence # myself, yourself

7) Intensive – are used to emphasize antecedents; are identical in form to reflexive (they themselves promised to come to the party)

Categories

1) CASE (shows the relation between references in a sentence)

Some pronouns distinguish between 2 cases which are called Nominative and Objective. Nominative – I, he, she (all personal)

Objective – me, him, us, whom, (it), (you)

A certain number of pronouns distinguish between a Common and Genitive case (Western – class) (Nominative and Possessive). They are somebody, anybody = few more. All other pronouns have no category of case.

2) NUMBER.

Has a very restricted field in pronouns. It is found in pronouns this/these, that/those, other/others.

As to I/we, he, she, it / they – there is no GRAMMATICAL category of number here, only semantic!

A peculiar difficulty with reference to myself/ourselves, yourself/yourselves (suppletive). The difference is purely lexical – “ourselves” is another word from “myself”.

There is no other grammatical category in English pronouns – there is no morphological category of gender, thus “he” is not a form of “she” but a separate word. (ONLY SEMANTICALLY!)

Differences with the Russian Approach!!

1) In Russian no subdivision of the Personal. Possessive as a separated class! Him – a personal pronoun in Objective case, not the objectiveу Personal subdivision.

2) In Russian we have negative pronouns – nobody, nothing

3) Reflexive and Intensive – one class in Russian – возвратное местоимение «себя»

4) In Russian 2 to composite “one another”, “each other” reciprocal