In linguistics and grammar, a pronoun (glossed pro) is a word or a group of words that one may substitute for a noun or noun phrase. 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 can be either singular or plural. Sub-types 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 meaning of the pronoun he is dependent on its antecedent, that poor man. The adjective form of the word "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 (containing the prop-word one) is a pronominal.
Theory
Pronoun versus pro-form Pronoun is a category of words. A pro-form is a type of function word or expression that stands in for (expresses the same content as) another word, phrase, clause or sentence where the meaning is recoverable from the context. In English, pronouns mostly function as pro-forms, but there are pronouns that are not pro-forms and pro-forms that are not pronouns.
Examples [1 & 2] are pronouns and pro-forms. In [1], the pronoun it "stands in" for whatever was mentioned and is a good idea. In [2], the relative pronoun who stands in for "the people". Examples [3 & 4] are pronouns but not pro-forms. In [3], the interrogative pronoun who does not stand in for anything. Similarly, in [4], it is a dummy pronoun, one that does not stand in for anything. No other word can function there with the same meaning; we do not say "the sky is raining" or "the weather is raining". A prop-word is a word with little or no semantic content used where grammar dictates a certain sentence member, e.g., to provide a "support" on which to hang a modifier. The word most commonly considered as a prop-word in English is one (with the plural form ones). The prop-word one takes the place of a countable noun in a noun phrase (or determiner phrase), normally in a context where it is clear which noun it is replacing. For example, in a context in which hats are being talked about, the red one means "the red hat", and the ones we bought means "the hats we bought". The prop-word thus functions somewhat similarly to a pronoun, except that a pronoun usually takes the place of a whole noun (determiner) phrase (for example, "the red hat" may be replaced by the pronoun "it".) Finally, in [5 & 6], there are pro-forms that are not pronouns. In [5], did so is a verb phrase that stands in for "helped" (a pro-verb), inflected from to help stated earlier in the sentence. Similarly, in [6], others is a common noun, not a pronoun, but the others probably stands in for the names of other people involved (e.g., Sho, Alana, and Ali), all proper nouns.
Grammar Pronouns (antōnymía) 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 (the Latin term being pronomen, from which the English name—through Middle French—ultimately derives), and thus in the European tradition generally. Because of the many different syntactic roles that they play, pronouns are less likely to be a single word class in more modern approaches to grammar.
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.
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. (Such patterning can even be claimed for certain personal pronouns; for example, we and you might be analyzed as determiners in phrases like we Brits and you tennis players.) 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 (or sometimes following) 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 (such as himself and each other) are referred to as anaphors (in a specialized restricted sense) rather than as pronominal elements. Under binding theory, specific principles apply to different sets of pronouns.
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