Personal and possessive pronouns

English personal pronouns are the nucleus of the class. They are: I (me), he (him), she (her), it, we (us), you, they (them).

Personal pronouns serve to indicate all persons and things from the point of view of the speaker who indicates himself/herself or a group of persons including him/her by means of the personal pronouns of the first person – I, we. The speaker indicates his/her interlocutor or interlocutors by means of the pronouns of the second person – you. All other persons or things are indicated by him/her with the help of the pronouns of the third person – he, she (for persons), it (for things), they (for both).

In Modern English personal pronouns have the category of case represented in two-member opposemes. But these opposemes differ from the case opposemes of nouns. The general meaning of “case” manifests itself in the particular meanings of the “nominative” and “objective” cases.

Person Singular Plural

1. I – me we – us

2. thou – thee you – you

3. he – him they – them

she – her

it – it

Case, as we know, is a morphological category with syntactical significance. The opposition of the nominative and the objective case is realized syntactically in the opposition of the subject and the object of the sentence, e.g.: She asked her.

With nouns it is different because a noun in a common case fulfills the functions of both the subject and the object. The pronouns you and it having only one form for both cases seem to resemble nouns in this respect.

As to the category of number, it should be observed that, strictly speaking, personal pronouns have no category of number, I and we or he and they cannot be treated as number opposites inasmuch as they differ from each other not only grammatically, but lexically as well. We is not I + I but rather I and you, I and she, I and they, etc. They is not always he + he, it may as well mean he + she. You is said to indicate both the singular and the plural. So it ought to be similar to cases like sheep, deer. But it is not 2 sheep = 1 sheep + 1 sheep, in other words sheep pl. = sheep sg. + sheep sg. With you it is different. You pl. does not always indicate you sg. + you sg. It may indicate you sg. + he, you sg. + they, etc.

Since I and we differ lexically, they do not belong to the same lexeme, they do not form an opposeme, and their number meanings are not grammatical. But I, he, she, it form a group of words whose combinability resembles that of singular nouns. Compare: I, he, she, it, John, the student … was (not were) …. The pronouns we, you, they, on the contrary, have the combinability of plural nouns. We may then regard the pronouns of the first group as singularia tantum, and those of the other group as pluralia tantum. In other words, the personal pronouns possess oblique or lexico-grammatical meanings of number.

Similarly we speak of the lexico-grammatical meaning of person. The words I, me, we, us (as well as pronouns of other groups: my, mine, our, ours, myself, ourselves) are united by their reference to the first person, the speaker. Of these only I has grammatical combinability with am. Only the “singulars” (I, me, my mine, myself) refer to the first person alone. The “plurals” include, besides the first person, reference to the second (I and you), or the third (I and he, she, or they), or both.

The words you, your, yours, yourself, yourselves are united by their reference to the second person, the hearer. But all of them (except yourself) may include reference to the third person as well (you and he, she or they). So in fact they are united negatively by not including reference to the first person.

The words he, him, she, her, it, they, them (also pronouns of other groups) are united by their reference to the third person, the “spoken-of”, or negatively by not including reference to the first person and second persons, the speaker and the hearer. Of these words he, she and it have explicit grammatical combinability (he speaks, she has …., it is …).

According to O.D. Ponomariv [15; 163] Ukrainian personal pronouns are subdivided into two groups: personal and personal-demonstrative (особові та особово-вказівні). Personal include such pronouns as я, ти, ми, ви, personal-demonstrative – він, вона, воно, вони.

Personal pronouns do not substitute nouns but serve to name a person: the pronoun of the first person singular я denotes a person that is speaking; the pronoun ти denotes an addressee to whom the speaker refers. Pronouns я, ти, and pronouns ми, ви are opposed as singular and plural forms, though have the following meanings: ми – this is me and somebody else (я і ще хтось); ми as the author’s plurality (авторське “я”) used in the publicistic and scientific styles, e.g.: ми опрацювали великий матеріал …. The pronoun ви indicates a lot of persons to whom the author's words are directed.

Personal-demonstrative pronouns denote persons which come out of boundaries of the communicative situation, or they denote some notions or objects mentioned during the conversation.

Ukrainian personal pronouns are declined according to six cases and have two numbers singular and plural. Personal-demonstrative pronouns are characterized also by the category of gender.

Following is the contrastive analysis of personal pronouns in both languages. The number of personal pronouns is similar in both languages. Here belong first of all the proper personal pronouns: я, ти, ми, ви, вони; I, you, we, they. Their characteristics and meanings basically coincide, but the role of personal pronouns in the English sentence is considerably bigger than in Ukrainian one. Whereas in Ukrainian the person and the number are expressed with the help of endings (читаю, читаєш, читає, читаємо тощо) in English the indexes of the verbs person and number are the personal pronouns (I read, you read, we read and so on). In English we cannot use the verb-predicate without the subject as in Ukrainian, e.g.: “Каже”, “Підходить і питає”, we necessarily should use the pronoun in the function of subject: He says; He comes up and asks.

The personal pronoun they can also be used with the impersonal meaning. In Ukrainian in such cases the pronoun is usually not used, e.g.: they say – кажуть.

Pronouns of the third person are of the person-object type (особово-предметні) in both languages. In singular they have the meaning of gender: він, вона, воно; he, she. Ukrainian pronouns він, вона unlike English ones he, she can point out towards both the living being and the inanimate object. The English it and in many cases Ukrainian воно denote all that which does not belong to the notion of “person”.

But the Ukrainian pronoun воно cannot be fully referred to object pronouns (предметний займенник). It is widely used to denote small according to their age creatures (теля, лоша, кошеня) and even persons (дитя, хлоп’я, дівча). It is also used to render the indefiniteness of some creature (Курить щось по дорозі. Що воно біжить так прудко? М. Коцюбинський.) or to render some disrespect towards it (Таке воно плюгавеньке!..). The peculiar feature of this pronoun is its wide usage as a particle: Вже воно щось є; Щось воно та вийде.

The English it has a much more distinct demonstrative meaning, than the Ukrainian воно (compare: It is a table “це стіл”).

In Ukrainian the majority of nouns – names of inanimate objects have the grammatical gender. That is why the English pronoun it corresponds in Ukrainian not only to воно, but also often to він, вона (e.g., стіл, лава). Whereas English pronouns he, she have always the Ukrainian correspondences він, вона.

The English it is widely used in the function of the formal functional subject (формальний службовий підмет) in impersonal sentences. Here this pronoun looses any lexical meaning, being transformed into a purely functional word, e.g.: it rains “йде дощ”, it is cold “холодно”, it is interesting “цікаво”. In Ukrainian such a usage of pronouns is impossible; they always retain their lexical meaning.

The peculiar feature of Ukrainian personal pronouns is the fact that the forms of the genitive case of the third person pronouns його, її, їх can be used in the meaning of possessive pronouns (його хата, її доля). In such a function they considerably differ from the proper personal pronouns [5; 60–61].

English possessive pronouns are usually treated as adjective pronouns, whereas they are in reality noun pro-nouns or pro-nouns, but they replace only possessive case nouns with which they are correlated. Compare: This is the teacher's (his, her) bicycle. This bicycle is the teacher's (his, hers).

The combinability and functions of the possessive pronouns and the “possessive case” nouns are almost identical, which justifies the view that the pronouns in question are possessive case opposites of the personal pronouns. The only argument we can put forward against that view and in favour of the opinion that possessive pronouns are a separate group, is as follows.

Modern English differs from Old English and from other Modern Germanic languages in having two sets of possessive pronouns – the conjoint possessive pronouns my, thy, his, her, its, our, your, their and the absolute possessive pronouns mine, thine, his, hers, ours, yours, theirs.

Therefore, it would, probably, be more in keeping with language facts (a) to treat my (mine), her (hers), our (ours), etc. not as the possessive case of personal pronouns but as a subclass of pronouns; (b) to regard my – mine, her – hers, etc. as a kind of case opposemes.

Ukrainian possessive pronouns include: мій, твій, ваш, наш, свій, його, її, їх, їхній. According to their grammar characteristics they are close to adjectives, e.g.: бажаю щастя всім вашим родичам. Possessive pronouns have the categories of gender and number and are declined according to six cases (мій, моє, моя, мої; мій, мого, моєму …).

Following is the contrastive analysis of possessive pronouns in both languages. In both languages they render the belonging and perform the function of attribute or the nominal part of the compound predicate.

The English language has a particular form of the possessive pronoun for each of mentioned functions: for the attribute – my, his, her, its, our, your, their, for the nominal part of predicate – mine, his, hers, its, ours, yours, theirs (these forms are sometimes used in the role of the postpositive attribute with the preposition “of” – the house of mine).

In Ukrainian both functions are performed by one form of possessive pronouns – мій, твій and others. The pronoun of the third person plural has two parallel forms їх and їхній.

Ukrainian grammars point out among possessive pronouns only such words as мій, твій, наш, ваш, їхній, свій. What concerns the words його (книжка), її (кімната), їхній (інститут) that are actually the reconsidered forms of the genitive case of personal pronouns of the third person they are referred to possessive pronouns but with some warning. From the real possessive pronouns they differ by the fact that they are indeclinable and are not coordinated with the modified noun in number, gender and case.

In Ukrainian when there appears the need to render the belonging of some object to some person, the possessive pronoun свій is used. It is used irrespective of the doer’s person, e.g.: я виконав свою роботу; ти взяв свій зошит; він відкрив свій портфель and so on. In English we do not have the direct correspondence to the pronoun свій and in each case the possessive pronoun of the person who is the doer of the action is used, e.g.: I did my work; you took your book; he opened his bag. In majority of cases (e.g., before nouns denoting parts of clothing or parts of the body, family relations and others) the usage of possessive pronouns is a norm. In such combinations possessive pronouns are very close to articles according to their usage. Compare:

Він поклав руку в кишеню. – He put his hand into his pocket.

Зніміть пальто. – Take off your coat.

Я говорив про це батькові. – I told my father about it [5; 61–62].