1.2. Pronouns: definition and characteristics.
A pronoun (fr. Latin pronomen: pro – for, and nomen – name) is used as a substitute for a noun or another pronoun. Traditionally Grammar describes a pronoun as a representative of a class of pro-words: he– instead of a man, similarly to here – instead of in this room, or there – at the window, one or ones – instead of repeating words used in the preceding part of a sentence etc.
Pro-words may be differently grouped: 1) according to the similarity in their structure the following words can be brought together: once, whence, hence, thence, since; who, where, what, when, why, whether, whither, whence; myself, himself, herself, yourself, oneself, themselves, itself; 2) semantically into personal, possessive, interrogative, indefinite, relative, reflexive, demonstrative, universal, indefinite, negative; some of them are sometimes referred to as adjective pronouns, or pronominal adjectives.
Having placed the 1st person pronoun in the centre of an imaginative space it is possible to arrange ‘pro-words’ from the point of view of their distance from I, so that to show the way they reflect the process of human cognition and perception of the world around a man; thus from the visible, cognizable, known to the less visible, less known, remoter world:
1) visible world (yes-words)
a well-defined area:
I ( me, my, mine, myself) / you( you, your, yours, yourself) / we (us, our, ours, ourselves) / he (him, his, himself, his, henceforth, herein, here, hence, hereby, hereafter) / she( her, her, hers, herself) / inanimate it ( it, its, itself) / they (them, their, theirs, themselves, thou, this, that, these, those, thenceforward, there, thence, then, thither, thenceforth, thee, thy, thine, therabout, thereby, thereafter, thereto, thereupon, therefrom, therof, therein)
an. indefinite area:
one, a, an, any, anyone, anybody, once anywhere, ever, eversince / inanimate anything
a questionable area
who, when, whence, why, whether, where, whither, whatever, whenever, wherever / inanimate what
an unknown world (no-words)
no one, none, no, not, nowhere, never, nonetheless, neither, nay, nought, naught, nobody, nonentity (of no importance), nonesuch (without equal), nevermore, nevertheless, nonevent (anticipated, but doesn't occur).
The pro-words are deictic in their function and are spatially-temporally-directionally bound.
1.2.1. Personal Pronouns
A personal pronoun is used to refer to the person speaking, the person spoken to or the person spoken about. In contrast with all other types of pronouns personal pronouns possess the grammatical morphological Categories of Person, Number, Case (Nominative I, Possessive /conjoint form/ my, Objective me, Absolute /absolute form/ mine)
The pronouns in the nominative Case form function as a subject, the pronouns in the possessive case form function as adjectives, the pronouns in the objective Case form function accordingly as objects, while the pronouns in the Absolute form function as a nominative group (This book is mine = my book – these forms are always accented in speech and prosodically brought out).
Reflexive pronouns embrace indefinite oneself, thus slightly extending the membership: myself, yourself, himself, herself, itself, oneself, ourselves, yourselves, themselves. They possess a category of number, and sometimes when a mixture of persons is involved the reflexive pronoun conforms to 1st person, or to 2nd person (expressed in a subject): You, John and I mustn’t deceive ourselves. You and John mustn’t deceive yourselves. One mustn’t fool oneself)
Relative pronouns possess the categorial distinctions of gender (inanimate or animate in the antecedent), and case:
1. who, whom, whose: I met a friend who was at school with you.
2. which, whose: A war broke out which lasted forty years.
That is a relative pronoun of a more general semantics: The letter that came this morning was from my father. The woman that spoke to me in the bus used to live near me in Exeter. All that I have is yours. It was only much later that I started to feel better.