Adjective Grammemes in Speech 9 страница
Hail to thee (a skylark), blithe spirit — Bird thou never wert.
(Shelley).
You was formerly the objective case, the nominative being ye. Ye is now used only in appeals and exclamations found in poetry and elevated prose.
Nor ye proud, impute to them the fault.
(Gray).
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§ 147. Some facts point to serious changes in the correlation between the nominative and objective cases taking place in Modern English. The objective case pronouns seem to encroach on their case opposites. We observe a peculiar trend which is steadily gaining ground, to use the objective case instead of the nominative when the pronoun is used predica-tively or when it is separated from the predicate-verb, as in M e and my wife could have fed her anyhow. (Caldwell). // is т e (instead of Я is /) has established itself as a literary norm. // is him, her, etc. are still avoided by careful speakers '. / didn't leave little Sheila, 'it was her who left me (O'Casey).
The nominative case is regularly preserved when an unstressed personal pronoun is used with a verb as the subject of a sentence to show the person and the number of the agent the action of the verb is associated with.
In B. A. Ilyish's opinion, the unstressed personal pronouns
in cases like lie read, t/ геу worked are well advanced on the
way towards becoming a kind of verbal prefixes 2 of person
and number. B. A. Ilyish is inclined to think that Modern
English gradually develops a system ol the personal pronouns
similar to that of Modern French in which the unsteressed
conjoint personal pronouns ('pronoms conjoints') je, tu, II,
Us, directly precede the verb, and the stressed absolute per
sonal pronouns ('pronoms absolus') mot, tot, lui, eux are
used in all other cases, including the predicative function
(c'est moi — it's me) and cases like Moi et топ pere, nous
aimons ... — Me and my father, we
However that may be, at the present stage the unstressed personal pronouns can hardly be regarded either as being or as tending to become verbal morphemes similar to the -(e)s morpheme of the third person singular 8.
1. They may be used not only as subjects — That was h e. It is s h e. John is taller than I.
1 But see Deskbook of Correct English by Michael West and P. F. Kim-
ber, Л., 1963, p. 130: "It is I" should be used in all formal writing and
where "/" is followed by "who" ("It's I who —"), but "It's me" may be
used in conversational contexts where no relative clause follows. So
also "It's her, — htm, — us, — them\"
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2 B. A. Ilyish, op. cit, p 197, see also Л. С. Бархударов,
Д, А. Ш т e л и h r, op. cit., p 78.
3 See А. И. С м и p н и ц к и и, op. cit., p 182—186.
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2. They can be coordinated with the help of conjunctions,
which is not typical of morphemes. Neither h e nor I am
likely to be present at the meeting (Hornby).
3. They can be coordinated with nouns. Ma and I both
ran inside. (Caldwell).
4. They have some freedom of distribution. / forget. Do
1 ever forget? I do not easily forget, etc.
Neither can they be treated as word-morphemes participating in the formation of analytical words. This is proved by the absence of a personal pronoun when a verb has a noun-subject. Thus we have Tom came, but not * Tom he came, which would be natural, if he came were an analytical word.
Thus it seems in keeping with language facts to treat the'' unstressed personal pronouns in the nominative case as independent words
§ 148. As to the category of number, it should be Observed that strictly speaking, the personal pronouns have no category of number. / and we or he and they cannot be treated as number opposites inasmuch as they differ from each other not only grammatically, but lexically as well. We is not / + / but rather / and you, I and she, I and they, etc. They is not always lie + he, it may as well mean he + she. You is said to indicate both the singular and the plural. So it ought to be similar to cases like sheep, deer. But it is not.
2 sheep = 1 sheep + 1 sheep, in other words, sheep pi. = sheep
sg. + sheep sg. With you it is different. You pi. does not
always indicate you sg. + you sg. It may indicate you sg. +
+ he, you sg -|- they, etc.
Since / and we differ lexically, they do not belong to the same lexeme, they do not form an opposeme, and their number meanings are not grammatical. But /, he, she, it form a group of words whose combinability resembles that of "singular" nouns. Cf. /, he, she, it, John, the student ... was (not were). . The pronouns we, you, they, on the contrary, have the combinability of "plural" nouns. We may then regard the pronouns of the first group as singularia tantum, and those of the other group as pluralia tantum '. In other words, the personal pronouns possess oblique or lexico-grammatical meanings of number.
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1 See "Nouns", § 74.
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Similarly, we may speak of the lexico-grammatical meaning of person. The words /, me, we, us (as well as pronouns of other groups: my, mine, our, ours, myself, ourselves) are united by their reference to the first person, the speaker. Of these only / has grammatical combinability with am. Only the "singulars" (7, me, my, mine, myself) refer to the first person alone. The "plurals" include, besides the first person, reference to the second (/ and you), or the third (/ and he, she, or they), or both.
The words you, your, yours, yourself, yourselves are united by their reference to the second person, the hearer. But all of them (except yourself) may include reference to the third person as well (you and he, she or they). So in fact they are united negatively by not including reference to the first person.
The words he, him, she, her, it, they, them (also pronouns of other groups) are united by their reference to the third person, the 'spoken-of 1, or negatively by not including reference to the first and second persons, the speaker and the hearer. Of these words he, she and it have explicit grammatical combinability (he speaks, she has ..., it is...).
The oblique grammatical meaning of 'third person' does not unite pronouns alone. All the nouns and noun equivalents are associated with this meaning.
Cf. He (she, it, John, Mary, rrtilk) is ..., not am.
This is the reason why nouns can be replaced by the pronouns he, she, it, they, but not by /, we, or you.
As to gender it is possible to discuss, for instance, the
lexico-grammatical subclass of the masculine gender only
in case we include pronouns of other groups, such as his,
himself, besides he (him). ^
The pronoun it is the only "personal" pronoun which indicates lifeless things or "non-persons". Together with its, itself, what, which, something, etc. it forms a subclass opposed to another subclass indicating persons (/, he, she, my, his, myself, herself, who, somebody, etc.).
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§ 149. The combinability of the personal pronouns differs from that of nouns. The reference to a particular person or thing makes all descriptions and limitations unnecessary. Such phrases as * The handsome it or * the he sound uncommon.
E. Nida. Morphology. Ann Arbor, 1946.
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On the other hand, a personal pronoun usually replaces a noun with all its attributes.
You feel ill at ease when your old friend tells you that h e can't place his short stories. (Maugham).
When used in speech most of the personal pronouns (we, you, they, he) may acquire a generalizing force, as in the examples We don't kill a pig every day (proverb). У о и cannot get blood from a stone (proverb). They say she is breathtakingly beautiful. (The Times). H ё who pays the piper calls the tune (proverb).
Possessive Pronouns
§ 150. The possessive pronouns are usually treated as adjective pronouns, whereas they are in reality noun pronouns or pro-nouns, but they replace only possessive case nouns with which they are correlated. Cf. This is the teacher's (his, her) bicycle. This bicycle is the teacher's (his, hers).
The combinability and functions of the possessive pronouns and the 'possessive case' nouns are almost identical, which justifies the view that the pronouns in question are possessive case opposites of the personal pronouns. The only argument we can put forward against that view and in favour of the opinion that the possessive pronouns are a separate group, is as follows.
§ 151. Modern English differs from Old English and from other Modern Germanic languages in having two sets of possessive pronouns — the conjoint possessive pronouns my, thy, /us, her, its, our, your, their and the absolute possessive pronouns mine, thine, hit, tiers, ours, yours, theirs.
'Possessive case' nouns, as we know (§ 97) can also be used absolutely (the idea was George's), but with them it is only a matter of usage in speech, since it is not fixed in any language forms. It is quite different with the pronouns. The pairs my — mine, thy — thine, our — ours, your — yours, etc. can be regarded as opposemes of a grammatical category. It is difficult to find a name for that category, but it resembles the category of case. As shown (§ 82), a case opposeme belongs to the morphological system of the language, but it reflects speech combinability and syntactical functions The same can be «-aid about an opposeme like my — mine The difference between its members is in combinability and func-
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tion. My has right-hand connections with nouns and functions as an attribute. Mine has other connections and other functions in the sentence. Now if we assume that both my and mine are 'possessive case' opposites of /, we have then to speak of a case opposeme within the possessive case. Therefore, it would, probably, be more in keeping with language facts (a) to treat my (mine), tier (hers), our (ours), etc. not as the possessive case of personal pronouns but as a subclass of pronouns; (b) to regard my — mine, lier — hers, etc. as a kind of case opposemes. It is obvious that further research is vitally necessary.
§ 152. The possessive pronouns of the first and second persons (as well as the corresponding personal pronouns) do not in fact replace any nouns, but their usage does not differ from that of the third person pronouns.
The pronoun its has a much wider application than the possessive case of nouns denoting inanimate things.
Cf. The atmosphere of the room, rarely the room's atmos phere, but its atmosphere.
Its has no 'absolute' opposite. The 'absolute' and 'conjoint' his may be regarded as homonyms.
Cf. Her (his) friend, a- friend of hers (his).
§ 153. One of the peculiarities of Modern English is the extensive use of conjoint possessive pronouns. When used in cases like He entered with h i s eyes shining and h i s hair in disorder, they add very little information. In fact their function is to specify nouns in the way the definite article does. They might be treated as pro-articles, but (a) they are correlated only with the definite article, (b) the meaning of the definite article is much more general than that of his or her.
Reflexive Pronouns
§ 154. They are compound noun prono/ms whose second 'element -self expresses the anaphorical relation of the first element, i. e. it shows that the first element refers to the person mentioned previously in the sentence. Thus, / ... myself, thou .. thyself, he (or John) ... himself, she (or Mary) ... herself, it (or bird) . itself, we .. ourselves, you ... ^your self (you/selves), they (or the chidren) ... themselves, one ... oneself.
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§ 155. Like the personal and the possessive pronouns, the reflexive pronouns distinguish the lexico-grammatical meanings of person, number and gender.
Some linguists are of the opinion that in myself — ourselves, yourself— yourselves number is expressed grammatically 1. But this is an illusion caused by the correlation self — selves. As ourselves is not myself + myself, but my self + yourself or myself + yourselves, or myself + himself, or myself -1- herself, or myself 4- themselves, we are to regard myself and ourselves as different lexical units, just as / and we, my and our. As to the so-called reflexive voice, see§211.
§ 156 The anaphorical use of the reflexive pronouns 'accounts for the fact tlyit they do not occur in the function of subjects, their usual function being that-of prepositionless or prepositional objects.
When I first met Hickson, I could have kissed his beauti ful boots. I loved them for themselves. (Gary).
You rftay be letting yourselves out nicely, but I can't. Nor can mother. (Priestley).
§ 157. Se//-pronouns are often used in apposition for emphasis. Dickson's view on the Middle Ages them selves would have to wait until another time. (Amis).
Some linguists regard the se//-pronouns used for emphasis as a separate group of emphatic pronouns 2. In colloquial speech there is a marked tendency to use emphatic pronouns as synonyms of personal ones. Perhaps, the usage is caused by the fact that se//-pronouns are felt to carry more weight than unstressed personal pronouns.
E. g. My wife and myself were left behind. (Daily Worker).
Demonstrative Pronouns
§ 158. Usually only the pronouns this (these), that (those), such and (the) same are regarded as demonstrative. But even this small group is not homogeneous. The pronouns this — that (these — those) are correlative. The sphere of this or these is the space or time close to the speaker and the moment of speech, whereas the sphere of that and those is the time or space farther away from the speaker and the moment of speech.
1 В H. Жигадло and others, op. cit., p 50—51
2 See B. H. Ж и г а д л о and others, op. cit., p. 57—58, M. Qan-
shina, N. Vasilevskaya, op. cit., p. 83.
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The pronouns such and (the) same have no correlative pronouns. They indicate objects or qualities by comparison with those pointed at by the speaker.
Now similar relations can be found in other pronouns. The words here and there meaning 'in this (that) place', now and then meaning 'at this (that) time', hence and thence meaning 'from this (that) time (place)' are similar to this and that in their relations to the speaker and the moment of speech. Since they do not name any place or time, but indicate it, and this indication is particular, variable and relative with regard to the speaker and the situation of speech, they are pronouns.
The words so and thus in the meaning 'in this way' are pronouns like such and (the) same. They have no correlative words and indicate the manner of actions by comparison with those pointed at by the speaker.
§ 159. Demonstrative pronouns can be:
Pro-nouns: Since the interval she had left him alone and illogically he regretted that. (Randall). This is pretty slick, eh? (Lewis);
Pro-adjectives: These continental rooms are always overpoweringly stuffy. (Randall). He was entering a year of such activity as he had never known. (Lewis);
Pro-adverbs: My aunt has grown accustomed to the atmosphere, but I can never do s o. (Randall). Thus nobly endowed, he was popular with audiences. (Lewis).
§ 160. This — these, that — those are number opposemes. The grammatical meanings of 'singular' and 'plural number are also preserved when these pronouns are used as pro-adjectives, thus involving grammatical combinability: this book, these books.
As elsewhere the 'singular' members of the opposemes occur in speech much more often than the 'plural' opposites, the ratio being approximately 9:1.
Interrogative Pronouns
§ 161. The meaning that unites the interrogative pronouns is "an inquiry" about some object (what, who), its properties (whose, which, what), place of some event (where), its time (when), cause (why), manner of existence (how).
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As seen from the above, this group embraces pro-nouns (wfut, who, which, whose), pro-adjectives (what, which) and pro-adverbs (where, when, why, how).
Who and what are regularly used to distinguish "persons" and "non-persons". What is, ho\ve\er, used in reference to living beings as well when the inquiry concerns the occupation of the person spoken about as in What is he? He is a student.
§ 162. The pronoun who is the only interrogative pronoun which has a case opposite, whom, as in Whom did you meet?
However we observe here a distinct tendency to substitute the nominative case (who) for the objective (whom), which may eventually bring about the obliteration of case distinctions in the interrogative pronouns.
E. g. I went to the pictures. Who with? ' Who are you trying to deceive? (Buck)
Note. The unmarked member of the case opposeme who — whom occurs, as usual, more often than the marked member (whom). The ratio is approximately 9:1.
§ 163. The interrogative pronouns are used to form a definite type of sentence — special questions.
W h о told you tliat? What is the charge? (Hanley).
Charles Fries writes: "The expression Who came? signals a question not because of a different arrangement, but solely because the signal of question is in the word who as a word" 2.
Connective Pronouns.
§ 164. The pronouns who, what, which, whose, that, w/ геге , when, why, how are called 'connective' when they serve to connect clauses in complex sentences. At the same time they retain their meanings and functions of pro-nouns, pro-adjec-
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