Pronoun


In linguistics and grammar, a pronoun is a word that substitutes for a noun or noun phrase. It is a particular case of a pro-form.
Pronouns have traditionally been regarded as one of the parts of speech, but some modern theorists would not consider them to form a single class, in view of the variety of functions they perform cross-linguistically. An example of a pronoun is "you", which is both plural and singular. Subtypes include personal and possessive pronouns, reflexive and reciprocal pronouns, demonstrative pronouns, relative and interrogative pronouns, and indefinite pronouns.
The use of pronouns often involves anaphora, where the meaning of the pronoun is dependent on an antecedent. For example, in the sentence That poor man looks as if he needs a new coat, the antecedent of the pronoun he is dependent on that poor man.
The adjective associated with "pronoun" is "pronominal". A pronominal is also a word or phrase that acts as a pronoun. For example, in That's not the one I wanted, the phrase the one is a pronominal.

Theoretical considerations

In grammar

Pronouns are listed as one of eight parts of speech in The Art of Grammar, a treatise on Greek grammar attributed to Dionysius Thrax and dating from the 2nd century BC. The pronoun is described there as "a part of speech substitutable for a noun and marked for a person." Pronouns continued to be regarded as a part of speech in Latin grammar, and thus in the European tradition generally.
In more modern approaches, pronouns are less likely to be considered to be a single word class, because of the many different syntactic roles that they play, as represented by the various different types of pronouns listed in the previous sections.
PronounDeterminer
Possessiveoursour freedom
Demonstrativethisthis gentleman
Indefinitesomesome frogs
Negativenoneno information
Interrogativewhichwhich option

In linguistics

Linguists in particular have trouble classifying pronouns in a single category, and some do not agree that pronouns substitute nouns or noun categories. Certain types of pronouns are often identical or similar in form to determiners with related meaning; some English examples are given in the table on the right. This observation has led some linguists, such as Paul Postal, to regard pronouns as determiners that have had their following noun or noun phrase deleted. Other linguists have taken a similar view, uniting pronouns and determiners into a single class, sometimes called "determiner-pronoun", or regarding determiners as a subclass of pronouns or vice versa. The distinction may be considered to be one of subcategorization or valency, rather like the distinction between transitive and intransitive verbs – determiners take a noun phrase complement like transitive verbs do, while pronouns do not. This is consistent with the determiner phrase viewpoint, whereby a determiner, rather than the noun that follows it, is taken to be the head of the phrase. Cross-linguistically, it seems as though pronouns share 3 distinct categories: point of view, person, and number. The breadth of each subcategory however tends to differ among languages.

Binding theory and antecedents

The use of pronouns often involves anaphora, where the meaning of the pronoun is dependent on another referential element. The referent of the pronoun is often the same as that of a preceding noun phrase, called the antecedent of the pronoun. The grammatical behavior of certain types of pronouns, and in particular their possible relationship with their antecedents, has been the focus of studies in binding, notably in the Chomskyan government and binding theory. In this binding context, reflexive and reciprocal pronouns in English are referred to as anaphors rather than as pronominal elements. Under binding theory, specific principles apply to different sets of pronouns.
In English, reflexive and reciprocal pronouns must adhere to Principle A: an anaphor must be bound in its governing category. Therefore, in syntactic structure it must be lower in structure and have a direct relationship with its referent. This is called a C-command relationship. For instance, we see that John cut himself is grammatical, but Himself cut John is not, despite having identical arguments, since himself, the reflexive, must be lower in structure to John, its referent. Additionally, we see examples like John said that Mary cut himself are not grammatical because there is an intermediary noun, Mary, that disallows the two referents from having a direct relationship.
On the other hand, personal pronouns must adhere to Principle B: a pronoun must be free within its governing category. This means that although the pronouns can have a referent, they cannot have a direct relationship with the referent where the referent selects the pronoun. For instance, John said Mary cut him is grammatical because the two co-referents, John and him are separated structurally by Mary. This is why a sentence like John cut him where him refers to John is ungrammatical.
Binding cross-linguistically
The type of binding that applies to subsets of pronouns varies cross-linguistically. For instance, in German linguistics, pronouns can be split into two distinct categories — personal pronouns and d-pronouns. Although personal pronouns act identically to that of English personal pronouns, d-pronouns follow yet another principle, Principle C, and function similarly to nouns in that they cannot have a direct relationship to an antecedent.
Antecedents
The following sentences give examples of particular types of pronouns used with antecedents:
Some other types, such as indefinite pronouns, are usually used without antecedents. Relative pronouns are used without antecedents in free relative clauses. Even third-person personal pronouns are sometimes used without antecedents – this applies to special uses such as dummy pronouns and generic they, as well as cases where the referent is implied by the context.

Inventory of English pronouns

The table below lists English pronouns across a number of different syntactic contexts according to the following features:
In addition to the personal pronouns exemplified in the above table, English also has other pronoun types, including demonstrative, relative, indefinite, and interrogative pronouns, as listed in the following table. For more detailed discussion, see the following subsections.
DemonstrativeRelativeIndefiniteInterrogative
thiswho / whom / whoseone / one's / oneselfwho / whom / whose
thesewhatsomething / anything / nothing what
thatwhichsomeone / anyone / no one which
thosethatsomebody / anybody / nobody
former / latter

Personal and possessive

Personal

Personal pronouns may be classified by person, number, gender and case. English has three persons and two numbers ; in the third person singular there are also distinct pronoun forms for male, female and neuter gender. Principal forms are shown in the adjacent table.
English personal pronouns have two cases, subject and object. Subject pronouns are used in subject position. Object pronouns are used for the object of a verb or preposition.
Other distinct forms found in some languages include:
Possessive pronouns are used to indicate possession. Some occur as independent noun phrases: mine, yours, hers, ours, theirs. An example is: Those clothes are mine. Others act as a determiner and must accompany a noun: my, your, her, our, your, their, as in: I lost my wallet. Those of the second type have traditionally also been described as possessive adjectives, and in more modern terminology as possessive determiners. The term "possessive pronoun" is sometimes restricted to the first type. Both types replace possessive noun phrases. As an example, Their crusade to capture our attention could replace The advertisers' crusade to capture our attention.

Reflexive and reciprocal

Reflexive pronouns are used when a person or thing acts on itself, for example, John cut himself. In English they all end in -self or -selves and must refer to a noun phrase elsewhere in the same clause.
Reciprocal pronouns refer to a reciprocal relationship. They must refer to a noun phrase in the same clause. An example in English is: They do not like each other. In some languages, the same forms can be used as both reflexive and reciprocal pronouns.

Demonstrative

Demonstrative pronouns often distinguish their targets by pointing or some other indication of position; for example, I'll take these. They may also be anaphoric, depending on an earlier expression for context, for example, A kid actor would try to be all sweet, and who needs that?

Indefinite

Indefinite pronouns, the largest group of pronouns, refer to one or more unspecified persons or things. One group in English includes compounds of some-, any-, every- and no- with -thing, -one and -body, for example: Anyone can do that. Another group, including many, more, both, and most, can appear alone or followed by of. In addition,

Relative

Relative pronouns in English include who, whom, whose, what, which and that). They rely on an antecedent, and refer back to people or things previously mentioned: People who smoke should quit now. They are used in relative clauses. Relative pronouns can also be used as complementizers.

Interrogative

Relative pronouns can be used in an interrogative setting as interrogative pronouns. Interrogative pronouns ask which person or thing is meant. In reference to a person, one may use who, whom or whose ; for example, Who did that? In colloquial speech, whom is generally replaced by who. English non-personal interrogative pronouns have only one form.
In English and many other languages, the sets of relative and interrogative pronouns are nearly identical. Compare English: Who is that? and I know the woman who came. In some other languages, interrogative pronouns and indefinite pronouns are frequently identical; for example, Standard Chinese 什么 shénme means "what?" as well as "something" or "anything".

Archaic forms

Though the personal pronouns described above are the contemporary English pronouns, older forms of modern English use a slightly different set of personal pronouns as shown in the table. The difference is entirely in the second person. Though one would rarely find these older forms used in literature from recent centuries, they are nevertheless considered modern.

Kinship

In English, kin terms like "mother," "uncle," "cousin" are a distinct word class from pronouns; however many Australian Aboriginal languages have more elaborated systems of encoding kinship in language including special kin forms of pronouns. In Murrinh-patha, for example, when selecting a nonsingular exclusive pronoun to refer to a group, the speaker will assess whether or not the members of the group belong to a common class of gender or kinship. If all of the members of the referent group are male, the MASCULINE form will be selected; if at least one is female, the FEMININE is selected, but if all the members are in a sibling-like kinship relation, a third SIBLING form is selected. In Arabana-Wangkangurru, the speaker will use entirely different sets of pronouns depending on whether the speaker and the referent are or are not in a common moiety. See the following example:
See Australian Aboriginal kinship for more details.

Special uses of English pronouns

Some special uses of personal pronouns include:

In English