XXI. Pronouns

The pronoun has the categorial meaning of indication and substitution, which unites a heterogeneous class of items into one part of speech. The generalizing substitutional function of pronouns makes them into syntactic representative of all the notional classes of words. Even personal pronouns of the first and second persons play the representative role, which is exposed by the addresses and appositions – I, Sam Brown, was born in 1975. – Are you happy, children? –

They have numerous subclasses, some of them substitute nouns. Like nouns, they have two cases: common and genitive (somebody-somebody’s). But seven personal pronouns have an objective case (I-me). Unlike nouns, pronouns do not admit determiners (articles), they have person and gender distinctions, singular and plural forms are often not morphologically related (I-we).

Class 1 – personal, which have person, number and gender distinctions and two cases. Personal pronouns in nominative case function only as subjects, in objective case – direct and prepositional objects, predicatives. – We met them. – I have read about it. – I quite agree with him. – It was me.

Class 2 – possessive pronouns, have person, number and gender distinctions, two forms: adjectival and nounal (my-mine), function as attributes and subjects, objects and predicatives.

Class 3 – reflexive and emphatic pronouns, have person, number and gender distinctions, including number distinctions in the 2^nd person. It has an indefinite form “oneself”. They function as objects after certain verbs. – She hurt herself. – I saw it myself. –

Class 4 – reciprocal pronouns (взаимные) – each other – indicates two objects, and one another – indicates more than two objects. Function as objects.

Class 5 – demonstrative pronouns – have singular and plural forms. Function as attributes, subjects and objects. (also “such”)

Class 6 – interrogative pronouns: who (whom), whose, what, which, function as question-words, in the interrogative sentence who, what, which are subjects, whom, what, which are objects, whose is an attribute.

Class 7 – relative pronouns: who (whom), whose, which, that, serve for connecting relative clauses, where they are, unlike conjunctions, parts of the sentence.

Class 8 – indefinite pronouns, there are simple and compound: some, any, no, every, as well as none, much, many, little, few, all, both, either, neither, each, other, one. Many, much, little, few function as pronouns (many of them, much of it), but have morphological categories of adjectives, so we have to apply a polar approach.

Broad meaning words adjoin the pronouns by their substitutional function (things, affair, make). The lexical paradigm of nomination has a complete substitutive representation: one, it, they – do, make, act – such, similar, same – thus, so, there.

Glossary of Linguistic Terms

1. indication - указание

2. substitution - замена

3. heterogenious - разнородный

4. nominative - именительный

5. objective - объектный

6. possessive - притяжательный

7. reflexive - возвратные

8. emphatic - усилительные

9. reciprocal - взаимные

10. demonstrative - указательные

11. relative - относительные

12. indefinite - неопределенные

13. broad meaning words – слова широкого значения

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