7 - Pronouns

Summary

Types and distinctive properties of pronouns

Traditional grammar has a number of different subclasses of pronoun: we will be looking at them in turn later in the chapter, but it will be helpful to begin by identifying at least their central members:

1. (1) Personal pronouns: I, me; we, us; you; he, him; she, her; it; they, them

2. (2) Reflexive pronouns: myself, ourselves, yourself, yourselves, himself, herself, itself, themselves

3. (3) Possessive pronouns: my, mine; our, ours; your, yours; his; her, hers; its; their, theirs

4. (4) Demonstrative pronouns: this, these; that, those

5. (5) Interrogative and relative pronouns: who, whom, whose, what, which, together with compounds in -ever – whoever, etc.

6. (6) Indefinite pronouns: anybody, anyone, anything; somebody, someone, something; everybody, everyone, everything; nobody, no one, nothing; none

Pronouns, we have said, are better analysed as a subclass of nouns than as a separate part of speech. We analyse them as nouns because the phrases they head are like those headed by common or proper nouns in terms of their functional potential and, though to a lesser degree, their internal structure. Functionally, pronoun-headed phrases are like other NPs in that they occur as subject, object, complement of a preposition, and so on: Everybody left; John criticises everybody; The change will be of benefit to everybody. There are, it is true, some differences in functional potential. A handful of pronouns have contrasting case-forms (I vs me, etc.), such that nominative forms like I and he don't occur as object or complement of a preposition, and accusative forms like me and him do not occur as subject, at least in kernel clauses.