The pronoun (Ilysh’s classification). The category of case and number.
some pronouns share essential peculiarities of nouns. Some pronouns combine with verbs (he speaks, find him), while others can also combine with a following noun (this room). 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 indef-initeness 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 irrel-evant 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 grammat-ical 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 
.Some 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).NUMBER/ It ought to be emphasised that what we mean here is the gram-matical category of number, and the question is, in what pronouns and to what extent that category is actually found. There is no grammatical category of number either in the pro-nouns my / our; his, her, its / their, and mine / ours; his, hers / theirs. E. g., her and their are different words, not different forms of one word. A peculiar difficulty arises here with reference to the pronouns myself / (ourself), ourselves; yourself / yourselves; himself, herself, itself / themselves. If we compare the two pronouns myself and ourselves, we shall see at once that the difference between the first elements of the two words is purely lexical (just as in the corresponding words my and our), whereas the second elements differ from each other by the same suffix -s that is used to form the plural of most nouns. 1 Thus we are brought to the conclusion that ourselves is es-sentially a different word from myself. There are no other grammatical categories in the English pro-noun: 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.
|
|
|
36. Distinction of types and pronouns. There are many examples in English pronouns of the same pho-netic unit used to express different meanings in different contexts. So the question arises whether this is a case of polysemy, that is, different meanings of the same word, or of homonymy, that is, dif-ferent words sounding alike. We may state the following cases in point: that demonstrative and that relative; who interrogative and who relative; which interrogative and which relative; my-self (and the other self-pronouns) reflexive, and the same pronouns intensive (non-reflexive). That seems to be the easiest of the problems to settle, as we can apply the test of the plural form here. The demonstrative that has a plural form those, whereas the relative that re-mains unchanged in the plural. It is obvious that the that which remains unchanged in the plural cannot be the same word as the that which has the plural form those. So we arrive at the conclusion that there are two different pronouns: that (relative) and that / those (demonstra-tive, parallel to this). With the other pronouns mentioned above no criterion of this kind can be applied, as they, none of them, have any spe-cial plural form. So, if that question is to be solved at all, we shall have to look for criteria of a different kind, which may not prove so decisive as the one we applied in the case of that. We shall have to rely on meaning and syntactical func-tion. It is not hard to distinguish between the interrogative and the relative meaning in the pronouns who, what, and which. It is also evident that the relative who, what, and which can intro-duce subordinate clauses. However, it is not so easy to say whether the pronoun what is interrogative or relative in a sentence like the following: I know what you mean.
|
|
|
Limits of the pronoun class.
The limits of the pronoun class are somewhat difficult to define. That is, there are words which have some pronominal features, without being full pronouns, or, even, have other features which are not pronominal at all. We may take the word many as a case in point.
Many is in several respects similar in meaning and function to the pronouns some and several; -cf. some children, some of the children, some of them; several children, several of the children, several of them; many children, many of the children, many of them. In this respect many differs from adjectives, which of course cannot be followed by the group "of + noun or pronoun". That would favour the view that many belongs to the pronoun class. On the other hand, however, many has an important characteristic which separates it from pronouns and brings it together with adjectives; it has degrees of comparison: more, (the) most. No pronoun has degrees of comparison, and indeed the pronouns some and several, which stand so close to many in other respects, cannot form such degrees. So, in determining the part of speech to which many belongs we have to decide which of its characteristics is more essential, unless we prefer to state that many, few, much and little are hybrids, partaking both of pronouns and of adjectives. adjectives. Since the choice of the more essential feature re-mains somewhat arbitrary, the conclusion on the word many may be affected by it. If, for example, we decide that the morphological feature is more essential, we will say that many is an adjective, but we shall have to add that it shares some vital syntactical features with pronouns. Another case in point is the word certain. When used as a pre-dicative it is of course an adjective, as in the sentence, We were quite certain of the fact. Things are different, however, when cer-tain is used as an attribute standing before a noun and has a mean-ing much the same as some, e. g. There are certain indications that this is true, or, A certain Mr Brown wants to see you. The question arises, is this the same word, the adjective certain as in the first sentence, or is it a pronoun? Here, too, we should apply some objective tests. One of the peculiarities of the word is that it can be preceded by the indefinite article, which generally is not the case with pronouns. 1 We must also find out whether cer-tain can be followed by the group "of + noun or pronoun". If no such examples are met with, we shall have to conclude that there are no sufficient reasons to class certain with the pronouns, in spite of the peculiar meaning it has in such sentenceS.
Дата добавления: 2020-04-25; просмотров: 250; Мы поможем в написании вашей работы! |
Мы поможем в написании ваших работ!