Beruflich Dokumente
Kultur Dokumente
Lecture 6
Pronouns
Most pronouns replace full noun phrases, and can be seen as economy
devices. Personal and demonstrative pronouns, for example, serve as pointers to the
neighbouring text (usually preceding text) or to the speech situation. Other pronouns
have very general reference, or can be used for substitution or ellipsis. In this section,
we survey the major pronoun classes: personal pronouns, reflexive pronouns,
demonstrative pronouns, and indefinite pronouns.
Pronouns have a very different pattern of use from nouns.
1 Personal Pronouns
Personal pronouns have different forms according to
number: singular, plural (e.g. / vs. we)
person: first person, second person, third person (e.g. I vs. you vs. she)
case: nominative, accusative, possessive (e.g. I vs. me vs. mine)
gender: masculine, feminine, neuter (e.g. he vs. she vs. it).
Personal pronouns and corresponding possessive and reflexive forms
person
personal pronoun
nominative
accusative
possessive
determiner
pronoun
reflexive pron.
I
we
me
us
my
our
mine
ours
myself
ourselves
2 singular
plural
you
you
you
you
your
your
yours
yours
yourself
yourselves
3rd singular
he
she
him
her
his
her
his
hers
himself
herself
it
it
its
itself
they
them
their
theirs
themselves
1st singular
plural
nd
plural
The above definitions of the first-, second- and third-person categories are clear
enough and apply to the vast majority of personal pronoun uses. However, there
are some problems and special cases.
A First person: we
While the singular pronoun I is unambiguous in referring to the speaker, the
plural pronoun we/ us/ ours can vary according to context. We can be inclusive,
including the addressee(s) (I + you):
What game should we play?.
It can also be exclusive, excluding the addressee(s) but including other
people (e.g. I + my family):
Nancy, we love you.
The speaker can make the reference more explicit by adding other words to
we:
We all believe in h i m , ' said the 18-year-old chairwoman.
We Americans are spoilt,' he said.
Another more explicit method is to use I/ we in coordination with another
pronoun or proper noun:
Weve got a bond in common, you and I.
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Well, it was late, and me and my friend Bob, wed been to a game.
Notice that w e in these examples is used as a subject, but is reinforced by
a loosely attached coordinated phrase. However, in general, it is left to the
addressee to decide the reference of we from the situation.
In a very different way, the meaning of we can also vary in academic
writing. Two uses of we can be distinguished:
1 We spoke of special chalk.
2. We are now able to understand why our information about the
states of motion is so restricted in quantum mechanics.
In 1, editorial we is used, which refers to the author(s) of the text. This use
sometimes occurs even when there is only one author. In 2, we refers to the
author(s) and reader(s), assuming a common understanding shared by both.
A third use of we is obsolete and associated to the royals:
3. We are not interested in the possibilities of defeat. (Queen
Victoria)
4. When we start talking we often cease to listen.
In 4, we refers to people in general; we here is similar to the generic
pronoun one.
All these meaning differences are usually implicit, so the readers must
decide the intended meaning in each case.
B Second person: you
You is similar to we in inviting different interpretations. For example, since
you can be either singular or plural, it is not always clear whether it refers to
one person or more than one. As with we the plural use can sometimes be
specified by a following nominal expression:
And what did you all talk about?
You two are being over optimistic
Are you guys serious?
You all is particularly common, and is three times more frequent in
American English conversation than in B r i t i s h E n g l i s h c o n v e r s a t i o n : t h i s
form ( a l s o transcribed yall) is especially a feature of southern American
English.
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accusative
form
(me)
predominates
as
in
3,
especially
in
conversation.
C Stand-alone noun phrases
Where a noun phrase stands on i t s own, without being integrated into a
clause, the accusative forms are again commonly used:
A: Who told him?
B: Me.
Me and my friend Bob, weve been to a game.
1.4 Some oddities of pronoun use
Certain inanimate objects are sometimes referred to with a feminine pronoun
form, although the use of it is more common today. This has been true for ships,
countries, cars, and until recently, hurricanes, which now are given alternative
masculine and feminine names and referred to as he or she as appropriate. (Note that
once an animal or anything else has been given a gender-marked proper name, the
appropriate feminine or masculine pronoun tends to be used.)
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As mentioned previously, in full sentences with the copula be, personal pronouns
functioning as subject noun predicates used to take the subject form in formal English:
It is I.
This is she.
This usage is now changing even in formal English, and in informal English, the object
form of the pronoun is definitely preferred:
Its me.
Thats her.
However, the desire to use formal English and be correct may lead some native
speakers to use I even as a conjoined direct object or a conjoined object of a
preposition.
?This concerns only you and I.
?The article was written by Nancy and I.
?Between you and I, hes a fool.
These forms are becoming colloquially acceptable, and they are occurring with everincreasing frequency even though they are prescriptively incorrect.
2 Possessive pronouns
The possessive pronouns (mine, yours, his, etc.) are like possessive
determiners, except that they constitute a whole noun phrase. (The antecedent is
underlined in the examples below:)
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make
the
possessive
noun
phrase
emphatic,
possessive
3 Reflexive pronouns
Reflexive pronouns end with self in the singular and -selves in the plural.
Each personal pronoun has a corresponding reflexive pronoun, and in fact you
has two reflexive forms: yourself (singular) and yourselves ( p l u r a l ) :
Personal:
we
Reflexive:
myself ourselves
you
he
she
it
yourself/-selves
they
themselves
The third person masculine singular reflexive pronoun himself; the third person
plural reflexive pronoun themselves, and the neutral, formal third person pronoun
oneself are formed differently from the others in that they contain the object form
(Accusative) of the personal pronoun + self/ selves, whereas the others consist of the
possessive determiner + self/ selves. *Hisself and *theirselves also occur in some
nonstandard dialects of English.
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to use the subject or object pronoun or a reflexive pronoun, or their desire to use a
phonetically more salient form in juxtaposition with one or more proper names. These
may also be instances where a first-person narrator is interacting with several other
people and uses ourselves instead of us to capture the interactive, dual, speakerlistener role that everyone is experiencing:
Id like to remind ourselves. . .
Reciprocal pronouns
The reciprocal pronouns each other and one another are similar in use to
reflexive pronouns. They refer back to the subject of the clause, and occur as
object or prepositional complement:
We always speak Romanian to each other.
They got along, they admired one another.
Reciprocal pronouns express a mutual relation between two or more
parties: e.g. A and B hate each other means A hates B and B hates A.
For these forms the subject must be conjoined or plural:
Bob and Dick cant stand each other.
The five children in that family helped one another throughout their lives.
Each other is far more common than one another.
Prescriptive tradition and some current grammar books state that the rule for
distinguishing the two reciprocal pronoun phrases, each other and one another, is
dependent on the number of participants involved: each other should be used with two
participants and one another with more than two:
Bob and George dislike each other.
The three sisters are devoted to one another.
Quirk et al. (1985) reject this rule and offer an explanation based on register
rather than number: each other is informal, and one another is used in more formal
contexts. The American Heritage Dictionary (1992) states that one another is preferred
over each other in temporally ordered series of events or things:
The waiters followed one another into the room.
Amundson (1994) noted that the written mode seems more amenable to the use
of one another than the spoken mode, whereas each other appears to occur freely in
both speech and writing.
Another factor in the use of reciprocal pronouns appears to be the animacy - or
even humanness - of the referents. For one another, all subject participants tend to be
animate or human, whereas participants can be inanimate in the case of each other:
These sentences have nothing to do with each other.
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To sum up, each other is clearly the more frequent and flexible reciprocal
pronoun; in fact, it seems to be used by some English speakers and writers to the
exclusion of one another.
4.1 The meaning and use of reflexive and reciprocal pronouns
A potential cross-linguistic problem derives from the distinction English makes
between plural reflexive pronouns and reciprocal pronouns.
The children hit themselves.
The children hit each other.
Many languages (Romanian among them) can use virtually the same forms to refer to
both the reflexive and reciprocal meaning and allow the context to disambiguate.
5 Demonstrative pronouns
The four words this, that, these, and those act as demonstrative
determiners.
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We must accept that the positive part of conventionalism <.. .> cannot offer useful
advice to judges in hard cases. These will inevitably be cases in which the explicit
extension of the various legal conventions contains nothing decisive either way.
But it must now be said that, so far from being a depressing conclusion, this states
precisely the practical importance of conventionalism in adjudication. <.. .> This
explains why cases do not come to court <...>.
This passage illustrates the two major types of linkage with demonstrative
pronouns. The pronoun these refers back to a specific noun phrase antecedent (hard
cases). In contrast, the pronoun this is used here to refer back to a more extensive piece
of text, which includes several preceding sentences.
5.1 Demonstrative pronouns referring to humans
The demonstrative pronouns are usually not used to refer to humans. A major
exception to this rule, though, is when they are used in introductions:
6 Indefinite pronouns
There are three main classes of indefinite pronouns: the compound pronouns
somebody, everything, anyone, etc.; the quantifiers some, all, any, etc.; and the
pronoun one.
6.1 Compound pronouns
There are four groups of compound pronouns, beginning with the determiners
every, some, any, and no:
personal reference
everyeverybody
everyone
somesomebody
someone
anyanybody
anyone
nonobody
no one
neuter reference
everything
something
anything
nothing
No one is normally spelt as two words, although the hyphenated spelling no-one
also occurs.
The meanings of compound pronouns match the meanings of noun phrases with
the corresponding determiners, except that they refer to indefinite persons or things.
Compare:
'He brought me some natural food.'
I have brought something for you from Doctor Fischer.
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Substitute one is far more common in conversation than in the written registers.
Generic one, on the other hand, is impersonal and rather formal in tone. It is largely
restricted to the written registers, especially fiction and academic writing.
7 Other pronouns
There are pronoun uses corresponding to semi-determiners. For example,
others, another, the other, the latter, the last, such.
Be self-reliant and helpful to others.
She said: Jack, I underestimated you.' 'Such was my suspicion,' he said.
The wh-pronouns what, which, who, whom, and whose are used to form
interrogative and relative clauses.
What's the problem?
But he's in the wrong, he's the one who's wrong.
Conclusions
The major types of pronoun are personal, reflexive, demonstrative, and
indefinite.
Personal pronouns refer to people and entities in the context of discourse;
they can also have generic reference.
Reflexive pronouns are used to refer back to the subject, or for emphasis.
Demonstrative pronouns point to entities which are 'near' or 'distant' in
the context of discourse.
Indefinite pronouns are mostly quantifying words, related in form and
meaning to quantifying determiners.
Bibliography:
Biber, D., Conrad S., Leech, G. (2002) Longman Student Grammar of Spoken and Written
English, Longman
Downing, A., (2006) English Grammar. A University Course, Routledge
Greenbaum, S., Quirk R. (1990) A Students Grammar of the English Language, Longman
Huddleston, R., Pullum G., et al. (2002) The Cambridge Grammar of the English Language, CUP
Leech, G. (1989) An A Z of English Grammar and Usage, Nelson
Quirk, R., Greenbaum S., Leech G., Svartvik J. (1972) A Grammar of Contemporary English,
Longman
Celce-Murcia, M., Larsen-Freeman, D. (1999) The Grammar Book, Heinle and Heinle
Vere, G., Cehan, A., Andriescu I. (1998) A Dictionary of English Grammar, Iai, Polirom
Exam questions
1. What role can play the genitive case forms of the personal pronouns?
2. Can personal pronouns have non-personal reference. If so, give examples and
explain.
3. Give an example of the inclusive use of the first person plural personal pronoun.
4. Give an example of the exclusive use of the first person plural personal pronoun.
5. What does we refer to in the sentence: In this article we spoke of inert gas.
6. What does we refer to in the sentence: As we saw in Chapter 2
7. Give an example of generic we in a sentence of your own.
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47. Illustrate the use of the quantifier none as both determiner and pronoun.
48. Illustrate the use of the quantifier little as both determiner and pronoun.
49. Illustrate the use of the quantifier a little as both determiner and pronoun.
50. Illustrate the use of the quantifier few as both determiner and pronoun.
51. Illustrate the use of the quantifier a few as both determiner and pronoun.
52. Does the indefinite pronoun one have a plural form? If so, give examples.
53. Does the generic pronoun one have a plural form? If so, give examples.
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