10. The pronoun. The numeral.

In linguistics and grammar, a pronoun (Lat: pronomen) is a pro-form that substitutes for a noun (or noun phrase) with or without a determiner, such as you and they in English. In present-day grammars, both English and Russian, pronouns are recognised as a part of speech and are claimed to possess their grammatical properties.

We usually find in grammars a classification of pronouns into personal, possessive, interrogative, indefinite, relative, etc.

In dealing with the category of case in pronouns, we must bear in mind that they need not in this respect be similar to nouns.

Some pronouns distinguish between two cases which are best termed nominative and objective (instead of nominative we might also say subjective). These are the following:

Nomin. I he she (it) we (you) they who

Obj. me him her (it) us (you) them whom

A certain number of pronouns have a different case system; they distinguish between a common and a genitive case, in the same way as the nouns (somebody, anybody, one, another).

All other pronouns have no category of case (something, anything, nothing, everything, some, any, no, my, his, etc.; mine, hers, etc.).

The case system of the pronouns requires special investigation. It is very well known that the form me, which is an objective case form, is not only used in the function of object (direct or indirect), but also as predicative, in sentences like It is me.

It will be easily seen that the category of number has only a very restricted field in pronouns. It is found in the pronouns this/ these, that / those, other / others (if not used before a noun). As to the pronouns I / we; he, she, it / they, it must be stated that there is no grammatical category of number here.There is no grammatical category of number either in the pronouns my / our; his, her, its / their, and mine / ours; his, hers / theirs.

There are no other grammatical categories in the English pronoun: there is no category of gender. The pronouns he, she, it, and also the pronouns his, her, us; his, hers; himself, herself, itself, are all separate words. Thus, she is not a form of the word he but a separate word in its own right.

A numeral is a word, functioning most typically as an adjective or pronoun, that expresses a number, and relation to the number, such as one of the following: quantity, sequence, frequency, fraction

With numerals, even more than with pronouns, it is difficult to keep the strictly grammatical approach. Numerals can be ordinal and cardinal. There are no grammatical categories to be discussed in numerals. There is no category of number, nor of case, nor any other morphological category. There is only the function of numerals to be considered, and also possibilities of their substantivisation. The most characteristic function of numerals is that of an attribute preceding its noun. However a numeral can also perform other functions in the sentence.

11 Types of grammatical categories

Grammatical category is a system of expressing a generalized gr.meaning by means of paradigmatic correlation of gr.features. the set of gr.features expressing a categorical function constitutes a paradigm. The paradigmatic correlation of gr. Features in a category are exposed by“gr.oppositions”(generalized correlations of lingual features by means of which a certain function is expressed.).The gr. categories organized in functional paradigmatic oppositions, can either be innate for a given class of words, or only be expressed on the surface of it.The category of number is organically connected with functional nature of the noun: it directly exposes the number of the referent substance. The category of number in the verb gives meaningful characteristics to the denoted process(the girl is smiling- the girls are smiling).The gr. categories should be divided into “immanent” categories (cat. Innate for a given lexemic class) and “reflective”(cat. of secondary derivative semantic value).Categorical forms based on subordinate grammatical agreement are reflective, while categorical forms stipulating gr. agreement in lexemes are immanent (tense of the verb, comparison of the adj. and adverb).Another essential division of gr. Categories is based on changeability factor of the exposed feature. The feature of the referent expressed by the category can be constant (unchangeable) and variable (changeable). Constant feature cat. can be seen in the cat. of gender. Variable feature category can be exemplified by the substantive number of the degrees of comparison.Constant feature cat. reflect the static classification of phenomena, while variable feature cat. expose various connections between phenomena