A) The semantic classification of the pronouns

Pronouns have every right to the reputation of a part of speech difficult to classify, since they include words very different lexically, syntactically and grammatically. Thus, if the syntactic principle is chosen as the basis of classification, then pronouns are divided intonominal and adjectival. If, however, thesepronouns are further divided into groups, then some of them may be referred both to nominalas well as adjectival ones (this, that, each, other, some, any, all etc.). As a result, scholars prefer the semantic classi­fication of pronouns, which suggests (with slight variations from author to author) the following division:

1) personal pronouns( I, you, he, she, it, we, they);

2) possessive pronouns (my, your, his, her, its, our, their);

3) demonstrative pronouns (this, that, such, (the) same);

4) reflexive (also called emphatic) pronouns (myself, yourself, himself, her­self, itself, ourselves, yourselves, themselves);

5) interrogative pronouns (who, whose, what, which);

6) relative pronouns (who, whose, which, that);

7) indefinite pronouns (some, any, somebody, anybody, someone, anyone, one);

8) negative pronouns (no, nobody, no one, nothing);

9) defining pronouns (all, each, every, everybody, everyone, everything);

10) reciprocal pronouns (each other, one another).

Considerable discreteness of this classification can hardly be to its advantage. Another flaw of the classification lies in that pronouns of dif­ferent classes share grammatical and semantic features. For instance, per­sonal, possessive and reflexive pronouns are marked with the category of person. Indefinite, negative and generalizing pronouns, in their turn, convey the meaning of quantity. To eliminate these unfortunate drawbacks, some grammarians suggest dividing pronouns into four groups: 1) personal, 2) demonstrative, 3) interrogative, and 4) quantitative. We will stick to the more complicated classification in order to give a detailed analysis of the pronominal groups.

B) The deictic and anaphoric function of the pronoun

Anaphora (A) is one of the linguistic features that realize text cohesion.But what is it really?It is usually defined as “reference to something already introduced in thetext”. For example

Thus, the pronouns in examples (1) are anaphoric:

(1) Gianni doesn’t come. You know he doesn’t like cinema.

Deictic (anaphoric) ‘ deixis’ – pointing without naming: this, now, there, him, you, etc.

Anaphoric (the function of connecting with the preceding sentence / clause): relative, conjunctive pronouns

C) Syntactic peculiarities of the pronouns (a closed class system)

Syntactic function: Subject, Predicate, Object

Syntactic functions are grammatical functions that relate to other grammatical functions within the syntax, or word order, of a sentence. For example, the grammatical function of object complement is directly related to the syntactic functions of direct object and predicate. The five syntactic functions that relative pronouns can perform in English grammar are:

1. Subject

2. Direct object

3. Prepositional complement

4. Possessive determiner

5. Adverbial

The following sections discuss five functions of relative pronouns and include examples to illustrate use.

Subject

Relative pronouns first function as the subject of adjective clauses. A subject is a word, phrase, or clause that performsthe action of or acts upon the verb functioning as the predicate. Take for example the following two sentences:

· The book belongs to me.

· The book is on the table.

These two sentences can combine into a single sentence with the help of a relative pronoun. First, the relative pronoun that replaces the subject the book in the second sentence to form the adjective clause that is onthe table. Then, the adjective clauses attaches to the noun book in the first sentence to form the sentence The book that is on the table belongs to me. The relative pronoun that still refers to the noun the book making that the subject of the adjective clause.

The three relative pronouns that can function as the subject of an adjective clause are that, who, and which. Other examples of relative pronouns functioning as subjects include:

· Harry Potter is the boy who lived.

· The department has experienced problems which have delayed production.

· The man, who is also my uncle, is a world-renowned poet.

· The teacher punished the students that cheated on the test.

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