4.2 Form and function of pronouns Flashcards
What is a pronoun?
The word pronoun is made up of ‘pro’, meaning ‘on behalf of’, and ‘noun’, which comes from the Latin word ‘nomen’; to name. So, a pronoun stands in place of a noun, a noun phrase, or a name. A pronoun is a noun substitute, a word that works on behalf of a noun.
Kinds of pronouns
There are various kinds of pronouns in English, from demonstrative through to distributive. 1-Demonstrative pronouns ‘point to’. They include ‘this’, ‘that’, ‘these’, ‘those’, and ‘such’. They can fulfil subject, object, and complement roles in a sentence. 2-Interrogative pronouns pose questions: – ‘Who’ and ‘whom’ for persons; –‘which’, ‘what’, ‘whose’, and ‘where’ for other things. 3-Relative pronouns relate to an antecedent—what has come before—and join that antecedent to a modifying clause. These are: – ‘who’, ‘whoever’, ‘whom’, and ‘whomever’—for persons and animals who have names; – ‘whose’— for the possessive of people, animals, and things; – ‘which’ and ‘that’—for animals and inanimate objects; – and ‘what’—an indefinite relative pronoun that stands for an undefined or unidentified antecedent. For example, ‘I don’t know what they want’.
Pronoun PROBLEMS
that-creep. USING THAT instead of WHO, CHANGE IT!! One pronoun problem that you might like to take note of is something we call ‘that-creep’. That is, using ‘that’ instead of ‘who’. For example, ‘she’s the girl that arrived first’, or ‘he’s the one that received the prize’. The remedy is simple: Change ‘that’ to ‘who’.
Indefinite pronouns
Indefinite pronouns refer to no one in particular. Take a moment to read through this extensive list. Remember to use a singular or plural verb, as appropriate. And also note that ‘none’ often means ‘not any’. For example: ‘Of all the films to have won Oscars in the last 50 years, none peaks to me as much as “Annie Hall”’.
Reflexive pronouns
Reflexive pronouns are used when the subject of the verb is also its object. Reflexive pronouns include ‘myself’, ‘yourself’, ‘himself’, ‘herself’, ‘itself’, ‘ourselves’, ‘yourselves’, and ‘themselves’. People often use these wrongly, as a kind of genteelism, thinking that they are being polite. Here’s a quote from a Colin Dexter novel, where reflexive pronouns do some heavy lifting: ‘If he’d (Morse) made something of himself, he’d made something of himself himself, as he’d once put things’.
Intensive pronouns
Intensive, or emphatic, pronouns are—you guessed it—used for emphasis. Again, these include ‘myself’, ‘yourself’, ‘himself’, ‘herself’, ‘itself’, ‘ourselves’, ‘yourselves’, and ‘themselves’. For example, ‘I, myself, witnessed the meltdown.’
Distributive pronouns
Distributive pronouns refer to persons or things one at a time—’each’, ‘either’, ‘neither’. They always take a singular verb. For example: ‘Each of the students studies hard.’
Expletive pronouns
And, finally, the expletive pronouns: ‘It’ and ‘there’. In grammar, the word expletive does not mean an oath or a swear word. It actually comes from the Latin, ‘expletivus’, which means ‘to fill out’. Expletives typically ‘fill out’ subject spaces in sentences and delay the meatier, more meaningful parts. Avoid the expletive in a sentence such as ‘it is their intention to go to the concert’, because this postpones the message. It would be much more direct to write: ‘They intend to go to the concert.’ Sometimes, you need to use an expletive construction. For example: ‘It’s raining cats and dogs!’ or ‘It’s no use crying over spilt milk.’ This is called the existential expletive. But, deploy it with care, especially in academic and technical writing. Ask yourself whether the expletive is serving a purpose in the flow or meaning of a sentence, or whether it is, in fact, just filling out space. You’ll often find that pronoun problems like this have a ‘knock-on’ effect, resulting in other sentence problems. In the sentence, ‘it is their intention to go to the concert,’ we also then encounter a heavy noun or ‘shun’ word: ‘Intention.’
