To the notional parts of speech of the English language belong the noun, the adjective, the numeral, the pronoun, the verb, the adverb.

These are the identifying properties of the notional parts of speech that unite the words of complete nominative meaning characterised by self-dependent functions in the sentence.

The features of the noun within the identificational triad "meaning — form — function" are, correspondingly, the following: 1) the categorial meaning of substance ("thingness"); 2) the changeable forms of number and case; the specific suffixal forms of derivation (prefixes in English do not discriminate parts of speech as such); 3) the substantive functions in the sentence (subject, object, substantival predicative); prepositional connections; modification by an adjective.

The features of the adjective: 1) the categorial meaning of property (qualitative and relative); 2) the forms of thedegrees of comparison (for qualitative adjectives); the specific suffixal forms of derivation; 3) adjectival functions in the sentence (attribute to a noun, adjectival predicative).

The features of the numeral: 1) the categorial meaning of number (cardinal and ordinal); 2) the narrow set of simple numerals; the specific forms of composition for compound numerals; the specific suffixal forms of derivation for ordinal numerals; 3) the functions of numerical attribute and numerical substantive.

The features of the pronoun: 1) the categorial meaning of indication (deixis); 2) the narrow sets of various status with the corresponding formal properties of categorial changeability and word-building; 3) the substantival and adjectival functions for different sets.

The features of the verb: 1) the categorial meaning of process (presented in the two upper series of forms, respectively, as finite process and non-finite process); 2) the forms of the verbal categories of person, number, tense, aspect, voice, mood; the opposition of the finite and non-finite forms; 3) the function of the finite predicate for the finite verb; the mixed verbal — other than verbal functions for the non-finite verb.

The features of the adverb: 1) the categorial meaning of the secondary property, i.e. the property of process or another property; 2) the forms of the degrees of comparison for qualitative adverbs; the specific suffixal forms of derivation; 3) the functions of various adverbial modifiers.

Contrasted against the notional parts of speech are words of incomplete nominative meaning and non-self-dependent, mediatory functions in the sentence. These are functional parts of speech.

On the principle of "generalised form" only unchangeable words are traditionally treated under the heading of functional parts of speech. As for their individual forms as such, they are simply presented by the list, since the number of these words is limited, so that they needn't be identified on any general, operational scheme.

To the basic functional series of words in English belong the article, the preposition, the conjunction, the particle, the modal word, the interjection.

The article expresses the specific limitation of the substantive functions.

The preposition expresses the dependencies and interdependences of substantive referents.

The conjunction expresses connections of phenomena.

The particle unites the functional words of specifying and limiting meaning. To this series, alongside of other specifying words, should be referred verbal postpositions as functional modifiers of verbs, etc.

The modal word, occupying in the sentence a more pronounced or less pronounced detached position, expresses the attitude of the speaker to the reflected situation and its parts. Here belong the functional words of probability (probably, perhaps, etc.), of qualitative evaluation (fortunately, unfortunately, luckily, etc.), and also of affirmation and negation.

The interjection, occupying a detached position in the sentence, is a signal of emotions.

numerals and pronouns have no positional functions of their own and serve as pro-nounal and pro-adjectival elements

we have obtained a foundation for dividing the whole of the lexicon on the upper level of classification into three unequal parts.

The first part of the lexicon forming an open set includesan indefinitely large number of notional words which have a complete nominative function. In accord with the said function, these words can be referred to as "names": nouns as substance names, verbs as process names, adjectives as primary property names and adverbs as secondary property names. The whole notional set is represented by the four-stage derivational paradigm of nomination.

The second part of the lexicon forming a closed set includes substitutes of names (pro-names). Here belong pronouns, and also broad-meaning notional words which constitute various marginal subsets.

The third part of the lexicon also forming a closed set includes specifiers of names. These are function-categorial words of various servo-status.

Bloch 47 § 10.Pronouns considered in the light of the syntactic principles receive a special systemic status that characteristically stamps the general presentation of the structure of the lexicon as a whole.

Pronouns are traditionally recognised on the basis of indicatory (deictic) and substitutional semantic functions.

The two types of meanings form a unity, in which the deictic semantics is primary. As a matter of fact, indication is the semantic foundation of substitution.

As for the syntactic principle of the word stock division, while recognising their deictic aspect, it lays a special stress on the substitutive features of pronouns. Indeed, it is the substitutional function that immediately isolates all the heterogeneous groups of pronouns into a special set of the lexicon.

The generalising substitutional function of pronouns makes them into syntactic representatives of all the notional classes of words, so that a pronominal positional part of the sentence serves as a categorial projection of the corresponding notional subclass identified as the filler set of the position in question. It should be clearly understood that even personal pronouns of the first and second persons play the cited representative role, which is unambiguously exposed by examples with direct addresses and appositions. Cf.:

I, Little Foot, go away making noises and tramplings. Are you happy, Lil?

Included into the system of pronouns are pronominal adverbs and verb-substitutes, in due accord with their substitutional functions. Besides, notional words of broad meaning are identified as forming an intermediary layer between the pronouns and notional words proper. Broad meaning words adjoin the pronouns by their substitutional function. Cf.:

I wish at her age she'd learn to sit quiet and not do things. Flora's suggestion is making sense. I will therefore briefly set down the circumstances which led to my being connected with the affair. Etc.

As a result of these generalisations, the lexical paradigm of nomination receives a complete substitutive representation. Cf.: one, it, they... — do, make, act... — such, similar, same... — thus, so, there...

Symbolically the correlation of the nominal and pronominal paradigmatic schemes is stated as follows:

N — V — A — D —Npro— Vpro— Apro— Dpro.

THE PRONOUN AND THE NUMERAL

The pronoun

As we have already seen (p. 30), the definition of pronouns as a separate part of speech has caused many difficulties. More than Once in the history of linguistics the very existence of pronouns as a part of speech has been denied. ¹ However, attempts of this kind have not proved successful and in present-day grammars, both English and Russian, pronouns are recognised as a part of speech. This in itself seems to prove that they indeed have some peculiar features which cannot be "explained away".

Thus, the pronouns I, you, he, etc., though pointing to things (in the widest sense of the word) and in so far resembling nouns, cannot as a rule be modified by adjectives. (Phrases like poor me appear to be rare.) These pronouns differ from nouns in that they cannot be connected with any article, or modified by a prepositional phrase, etc. We will therefore start on the assumption that pronouns do constitute a separate part of speech, and proceed to investigate their grammatical properties.

Classification of pronouns

We usually find in grammars a classification of pronouns into personal, possessive, interrogative, indefinite, relative, etc. It is clear, however, that some points in that classification are not grammatical at all. Thus, if we say, for example, that a pronoun is indefinite we do not characterise it from a grammatical but from a semantic point of view. There is no doubt that the pronoun something is indefinite in its meaning, but that indefiniteness of meaning is in no way reflected either in its morphological properties or in its syntactical functions. This is as much as to say that the indefiniteness of its meaning is irrelevant from the grammatical viewpoint. In a similar way, if we state that the pronoun nothing is negative, we characterise its meaning (and a most important characteristic it is, too), but, again, this is irrelevant for grammar, since it does not entail anything concerning the morphological or syntactical peculiarities of the word. Therefore, in proceeding to a study of pronouns, we will try to keep the grammatical viewpoint firmly in mind, though this will not always be an easy thing to do.

CASE

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.

¹ See, for example, Л. В. Щерба, О частях речи в русском языке. Избранные работы по русскому языку, 1957, стр. 68 сл.

The Pronoun 67

S ome of them may, and indeed do, have peculiarities which no noun shares.

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

The two pronouns in brackets, it and you, might have been left out of the list. We have included them because they share many other peculiarities with the pronouns I, he, she, we, and they. No other pronoun, and, indeed, no other word in the language has that kind of case system.

A certain number of pronouns have a different case system, viz. they distinguish between a common and a genitive case, in the same way as the nouns treated above (see p. 41 ff.). These are, somebody, anybody, one, another, and a few more.

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

The case system in pronouns of the somebody type is identical with that of the nouns of the father type. So we need not go into this question any further.

The case system of the pronouns given on this page, on the other hand, is quite isolated in the language, and 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. The sentence It is I, though still possible, is rarely used: it has acquired a kind of archaic flavour as its stylistic peculiarity and has therefore become inappropriate in colloquial speech. However, in the construction it is... who the form I is usual: "It's I who am tiresome" he replied. (FORSTER) As to the other pronouns of this group, the sentences It is him, It is her, It is us, It is them, with the objective case form used as a predicative, do occur, but they seem still to have a somewhat careless or "low colloquial" colouring and they have not superseded the variants It is he, It is she, It is we, It is they. Here is an example: No, I don't suppose it will prove to be them. (FORSTER)

The form me can occasionally be found in the function of subject, provided it does not immediately precede the predicate verb, as in the sentence: That's the law of the state, Ham, and there's nothing me or you can do about it. (E. CALDWELL) The form me could not have been used here if there had not been the second subject you, in the sentence. This confirms the view that stress plays

С8 The Pronoun and the Numeral

a n important part in determining the use of I or me in such conditions. The form her as subject is found, for instance, in the following sentence from a short story by the same author. Lujean's the likable kind. You and her will get along just fine before you know it. (E. CALDWELL) It should be noted, however, that the form her is possible here because it is part of the group you and her, and therefore gets some sentence-stress. If a feminine pronoun were to be the only subject of the sentence, the form would have to be she, no matter what the style of the sentence was.

Opinions on the precise stylistic colouring of such sentences differ to some extent. What seems certain here is that the nominative forms I, he, etc. are being gradually restricted to the function of subject, whereas the objective case forms me, him, etc., are taking over all other functions. This process seems to have gone further with the 1st person singular pronoun than with the others; the reason for this is not yet clear. It is the isolated position of this case system in the language which must be held responsible for the change. The distinction between I, he, she, we, they, on the one hand, and me, him, her, us, them, on the other, is thus changed from a case distinction to one of a different character — that of unstressed and stressed forms of pronouns. This is similar to the process which has long since been completed in the French language (and in other Romance languages, such as Italian, or Spanish), where the original nominative form (e. g. French je, from Latin ego) has been restricted to the function of subject of the sentence, whereas the original objective case form (e. g. French moi, from Latin me) has taken over its other functions, mainly that of predicative. Cf. Je suis ici 'I am here' and C'est moi 'it is me'; Il est ici 'he is here' and C'est lui 'it is he (him)'. The development in Modern English seems to be following the same lines, on the whole, but it does differ from the French in so far as the use of I as a predicative is still quite possible, whereas in French that possibility is completely lost for the forms je, tu, etc. Here is a curious example from a modern play by S. Taylor:

Maude (suspecting). Is there someone you want to marry?

(Sabrina nods) Who is it?

Sabrina (turning to Linus). Him!

Linus. For God's sake, Sabrina, watch your grammar.

Sabrina. It is he!

With the pronoun who the development is partly similar, and partly different. It is similar in the main point: the case difference between who and whom is quite obviously disappearing. But here it is the original objective case form that is giving way, and it is no longer preserved in any specific syntactic function. Thus, the sentence whom did you see? is being superseded by the variant, who

The Pronoun 69

d id you see?, and, similarly, who tends to take the place of whom in such sentences as, This is the man who(m) you wanted to see.

Examples of this use are found as early as in Shakespeare, for instance Between who? ("Hamlet"), and also occur in the 18th century, for instance in a novel by Jane Austen in a conversation between educated speakers: But who are you looking for? Are your sisters coming? An example from a modern play: Who were you private secretary to? (TAYLOR)

E. Sapir has devoted several pages of his book on language to a detailed discussion of all factors contributing to the use of who instead of whom in such contexts. ¹ Be that as it may, the gradual elimination of the objective form whom is beyond doubt.

Thus the general tendency is clearly towards the disappearance of the opposition between nominative and objective in pronouns.

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