Pronoun as a part of speech in English and Ukrainian languages
1. Pronoun as a part of speech: general characteristics. Grammatical categories of pronoun Words fall into classes known as parts of speech in accordance with their lexico-grammatical meanings, morphological categories, typical stem-building elements, combinability and functions. The peculiarity of pronouns as a class of words is that they are not united by any of the above-mentioned features. True, they have certain grammatical peculiarities, but what unites them is the way they denote reality. Pronouns are words serving to denote substances, qualities, quantities, circumstances, etc. not by naming or describing them, but by indicating them. As words of the vocabulary pronouns have extremely general meanings. But in speech pronouns indicate particular objects or qualities. When a speaker says I, he refers to himself that is to a particular person of definite age, height, colour of hair, etc. When another speaker says I, he also refers to himself, but this time it is another person, with other features. Thus, the meaning of I, general as it is, remains the same, but the objects referred to are different. The meaning of the pronoun such is of “the same kind”, but one speaker may use such to indicate a definite colour, another speaker may use it with reference to some size, a third one to indicate a particular temperature, etc. On the other hand, one and the same person may be referred to as I, you or he, depending upon who speaks. This and that may indicate the same object, depending on the relative position of the speaker and the object. Thus, pronouns can be defined as words whose meanings are very general and stable, but whose references in speech are particular, variable and relative with regard to the speaker and the situation of speech. We insist on the stability of meaning and the variability and relativity of reference, because many authors speak of the relative meaning of pronouns. But when we ask What is this? referring now to the blackboard, now to a piece of chalk, we use the word this with the same meaning, “the object I point at” or “the object I demonstrate”, and not with the meanings of “blackboard”, “piece of chalk”, etc. Those are only the objects of reference and not the meanings of the word this. Etymologically the word “pronoun” means “a word used instead of a noun”. This meaning reflects to some extent, the role of pronouns in language. Owing to the exceptional variability of reference a pronoun may replace hundreds of nouns with comparatively stable or limited references. This explains the fact that pronouns are used very frequently and form a considerable part of any text; though as a class of words they are not numerous. The role of pronouns is much greater than it can be inferred from the meaning of the word pronoun. It is not always that a pronoun is substituted for a noun. For instance, what noun does the pronoun it replace in It rains? What is more important, pronouns can be substituted not only for nouns, but for other parts of speech as well. Traditionally, pronouns are divided into “noun pronouns”, and “adjective pronouns”. In reality pronouns may also be used instead of numerals (compare: twenty books – several books, many books) and adverbs (here, here, now, then). Using the prefix pro- in its meaning “instead of”, we may, therefore, classify pronouns with regard to the parts of speech into pro-nouns, pro-adjectives, pro-numerals and pro-adverbs. Thus, pronouns are a collection of words correlated with different parts of speech, which accounts for their not being united by any morphological categories or syntactical functions. Sometimes a pronoun is correlated with one part of speech only. But very often this is not so. In a part of speech, as we know, variants of the same lexeme may belong to different subclasses. The peculiarity of pronouns is that variants of the same lexeme may be correlated with different parts of speech. This in the sentence Is this a bike? is a pro-noun, while in a sentence He gave me this bike it is a pro-adjective. Here in He lives here is a pro-adverb, but in from here to Kyiv it is a pro-noun. As pointed out by A.I. Smirnitsky, the boundaries of pronouns and those parts of speech with which they are correlated are rather fluid. The word this in this bike may be regarded both as an adjective pronoun and as a pronominal adjective, the word here – as a pronominal adverb and as a adverbial pronoun [24; 96–99]. According to Yu.O. Zhluktenko [5; 59] in grammars of both languages there are differentiated the following classes of pronouns: 1) personal (особові), 2) possessive (присвійні), 3) reflexive (зворотні), 4) demonstrative (вказівні), 5) interrogative (питальні), 6) relative (відносні), 7) indefinite (неозначені), 8) negative (заперечні). The class of English pronouns which in some grammars are referred to as generalizing (узагальнюючі) (all, each, every, both, either and others) have a lot in common with such Ukrainian pronouns which are distinguished into the class of defining pronouns (означальні: весь, всякий, сам, кожний, інший тощо). The pronoun сам belonging to this class corresponds in English to the whole class of pronouns which are called as strengthening (підсильні) (myself, yourself and others). Besides the mentioned ones in English there are still distinguished the reciprocal pronouns (взаємні) (each other, one another), distinguishing (видільний) (other, another), and indefinite-personal (one) (неозначено-особові) pronouns. The mentioned classes are not distinguished among Ukrainian pronouns by existing grammars. Nevertheless, views concerning the number of classes of pronouns in both contrasted languages differ from scholar to scholar. Thus, unlike Yu.O. Zhluktenko, B.S. Khaimovich and B.I. Rogovskaya differentiate the following classes of English pronouns, taking into account their semantic peculiarities as well as some grammatical peculiarities: 1) personal, 2) possessive, 3) reflexive, 4) demonstrative, 5) interrogative, 6) connective, 7) reciprocal, 8) indefinite, 9) negative, 10) generalizing, 11) quantitative, 12) contrasting. Also they state that a pronoun may belong to more than one group at the same time. The pronoun whose may be treated as interrogative (or connective) and possessive. The pronouns one, one’s, oneself may be grouped together as indefinite personal, or they may be classified separately: one as personal, one’s as possessive, oneself as reflexive, etc. [24; 99]. In his turn the Ukrainian linguist O.D. Ponomariv (with co-authors) [15; 162–168] presents the following subdivision of Ukrainian pronouns into classes (розряди займенників) in the book “Modern Ukrainian language”: 1) personal pronouns (особові займенники); 2) the reflexive pronoun (зворотний займенник себе); 3) possessive pronouns (присвійні займенники); 4) demonstrative pronouns (вказівні займенники); 5) defining pronouns (означальні займенники); 6) interrogative pronouns (питальні займенники); It must be mentioned that in Ukrainian the pronoun is also a notional part of speech which does not name objects, their qualities and quantities but only indicates them. So the differentiation of a pronoun as a part of speech is based upon its peculiar semantics – the high level of the meaning generalizing (висока узагальненість значення). Ukrainian pronouns are different in regard to their word-building and word-changing characteristics (різноманітні за формами словотворення і словозміни). Ukrainian pronouns are declinable, though each separate group of pronouns has its own peculiarities of declining, for example personal pronouns are characterized by: suppletivism – я, мене, мені, the availability of prepositional and non-prepositional case forms – його, до нього; the Ukrainian reflexive pronoun себе does not have the nominative case form. In both languages we differentiate simple, complex and compound pronouns according to their morphological structure (прості, складні і складені займенники). There are no derivative pronouns (похідні займенники) in these languages since the affixation is not used to form pronouns in these languages. Grammatical categories of pronoun. The category of number is only characteristic of the English demonstrative pronouns (this, that), the differentiatingpronoun (other), reflexive and strengthening pronouns (myself – ourselves). In Ukrainian the category of number is expressed by demonstrative pronouns (той, цей, такий), possessive pronouns (мій – мої), some interrogative and relative pronouns (який, чий, котрий) and created from them negative pronouns (ніякий, нічий) and indefinite pronouns (деякий, абиякий), as well as in some defining pronouns (всякий, кожний, інший, сам, весь). All the mentioned Ukrainian pronouns also have the category of gender, which is absolutely missing for English pronouns. The category of case is expressed in the system of English pronouns also unequally. Some part of pronouns have like nouns the common and possessive cases (indefinite, reciprocal, the indefinite-personal and defining pronouns), the rest (personal, interrogative and relative pronouns) have unlike English nouns the nominative and the objective cases (називний та об’єктний відмінки). In Ukrainian pronouns have the same six cases as the nouns. But similar to numerals, Ukrainian pronouns do not have the common system of declination. A lot of pronouns are characterized by the suppletivism in their declension (the absence of the stable stem to which the case endings are added: я – мене, він – його, хто – кого, що – чого). To some extent, it is characteristic also of some English pronouns (compare: I – me, she – her, we – us).
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