Pronouns
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Wikipedia-Article "Pronouns"
In linguistics and grammar, a pronoun is a pro-form that substitutes for a noun phrase. The replaced phrase is the antecedent of the pronoun. A pronoun used for the item questioned in a question is called an interrogative pronoun, such as who.
For example, consider the sentence "John gave the coat to Alice." Any of the three nouns in the sentence can be replaced by personal pronouns to give: "He gave it to her." If the coat, John, and Alice have been previously mentioned, the listener can deduce what the pronouns he, it and her refer to and understand the meaning of the sentence.
The use of pronouns is particularly welcome when it prevents repetitions. For example "John took the coat and John gave the coat to Alice." can be expressed more effectively by "John took the coat and he gave it to Alice."
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Distinctions made in pronouns
Pronouns usually show the basic distinctions of person and number (the most common system distinguishing between first, second and third person, and singular and plural number), but they may also feature other categories such as case (nominative we vs. objective us in English), gender (masculine he vs. feminine she in English), and animacy or humanness (human who vs. nonhuman what in English). These can of course vary greatly. The English dialect spoken in Dorset uses ee for animates and er for inanimates.
Some languages distinguish inclusive and exclusive first-person pronouns, letting a listener know whether the person addressed is or is not included in "we". For example, Tok Pisin has seven first-person pronouns according to number (singular, dual, trial, plural) and inclusiveness/exclusiveness, such as mitripela (they two and I) and yumitripela (you two and I).
Slavic languages have two different third-person genitive pronouns (one non-reflexive, one reflexive). For example (in Serbian):
- Ana je dala Mariji njenu knjigu. = "Ana gave Maria her book." (non-reflexive, that is, Maria's book)
- Ana je dala Mariji svoju knjigu. = "Ana gave Maria her book." (reflexive, i.e. Ana's own book)
The pronoun may encode politeness and formality. Many languages have different pronouns for informal use or use among friends, and for formal use or use about/towards superiors, especially in the second person. A common pattern in European languages is the so-called T-V distinction (named after the use of pronouns beginning in t- and v- in Romance languages, as in French tu and vous).
It is very common for pronouns to show more grammatical distinctions than nouns. The Romance languages have lost the Latin grammatical case for nouns, but preserve the distinction in the pronouns. The same holds for English with respect to its Germanic ancestor.
It is also not uncommon for languages not to have third-person pronouns. In those cases the usual way to refer to third persons is by using demonstratives or full noun phrases. Latin made do without third-person pronouns, replacing them by demonstratives (which are in fact the source of personal pronouns in all Romance languages).
Some languages lack the grammatical category pronoun entirely. Both Japanese and Korean are such languages. In these languages, instead of pronouns, there is a small set of nouns that reference the discourse participants (as pronouns do in other languages). Most often, these referential nouns are not used, and proper personal names, some deictics and titles are used instead. Usually, once the subject is understood, no explicit reference is made at all. In Japanese sentences, subjects are not obligatory, so the speaker chooses which word to use depending on the rank, job, age, gender, etc. of the speaker and the addressee. For instance, in formal situations, adults usually refer to themselves as watashi or the even more polite watakushi, while young men may use the student-like boku and police officers may use honkan ("this officer"). In informal situations, women may use the colloquial atashi, and men may use the rougher ore.
Pro-drop languages
In some languages, a pronoun is required whenever a noun or noun phrase needs to be referenced, and sometimes even when no such antecedent exists (cf English it rains). In many other languages, however, pronouns can be omitted when unnecessary or when context makes it clear who or what is being talked about. Such languages are called pro-drop languages. In some cases the information about the antecedent is preserved in the verb (through person/number inflection).
Types of pronouns
- Demonstrative pronouns
- Interrogative pronouns
- Personal pronouns
- Possessive pronouns
- Relative pronouns
It is me
In some languages, a personal pronoun has a form called a disjunctive pronoun, which is used when it stands on its own, or with only a copula, such as in answering to the question "Who wrote this page?" English pronouns used in this way have caused some dispute. The natural answer for most English speakers in this context would be "me" (or "it's me"), parallel to "moi" (or "c'est moi") in French. Some grammarians have argued, and persuaded some educators, that the correct answer should be "I" or "it is I" because the full sentence would be "It is I who wrote this page." However, since English has lost noun inflection and relies on word order, using the accusative me after the verb be like other verbs seems very natural to modern speakers. The phrase "it is I" historically came from the Middle English "it am I" and the change from am to is was also a step to the fixed word order of SVO.
Pronouns of other languages
- Chinese pronouns
- Dutch pronouns
- Esperanto pronouns
- French pronouns
- German pronouns
- Ido pronouns
- Italian pronouns
- Portuguese pronouns
- Spanish pronouns
- Vietnamese pronouns