CHAPTER XIV.

PRONOUNS.

119. A Pronoun is a word used instead of a

noun.

The definition of a Pronoun is usually stated in this form. It has the merit of being short and easily understood, and it calls attention to an important function which most Pronouns perform, namely, that of saving the repetition of the noun. Thus, if no pronouns existed, instead of saying 'John gave Mary a watch on her birthday, and she lost it,' we should have to say 'John gave Mary a watch on Mary's birthday, and Mary lost the watch.'

120. But have all pronouns this property of serving as substitutes for nouns ?

A good deal of ingenuity must be exercised if we are to bring within the scope of the definition (1) the Personal Pronouns of the First and Second Persons, and (2) the Interrogative Pronouns.

(1) For if the pronouns I and you were abolished, and nouns were put in their place, we should have to recast our sentences entirely and make all our statements in the third person.

(2) Again, when we ask 'Who broke the window?' what is the noun for which we are to say that the pronoun Who serves as substitute? We must maintain that the pronoun Who here stands for the noun which the answer supplies, but this seems rather far-fetched. For suppose that the reply to the question is not 'Brown,' nor 'the boy,' but 'I don't know,' where is the noun?

The characteristic feature of Pronouns is rather this :-Pronouns are

names of things only in relation to other things. According to circumstances, I, you, he, this, that, either, can be applied to any objects. I means Jones when Jones speaks, Zeus when Zeus speaks, a ghost when a ghost speaks; but horse is the invariable name of things belonging to a particular class and of those things only. In certain situations any. thing can be I, you, or he, but only one set of things can be horses. This is the essential peculiarity which distinguishes pronouns from nouns, —their capacity for universal application.

121. Pronouns are of different kinds. (1) Some are used exclusively as substitutes for nouns. (2) Others are used both as substitutes for nouns and as adjectives limiting nouns. (3) A few so-called pronouns are used only as adjectives, but they are usually dealt with under the head of pronouns because they are connected with pronouns in their origin. Thus (1) he and who are used only as nouns. (2) That and what are used both as nouns and as adjectives. In the sentence, ‘I like that book,' that is an adjective: in 'I like that,' it is a substitute for a noun, (though we might also regard it as an adjective with a noun understood, just as we understand the noun 'horse' to be implied with the adjective 'black' in the sentence 'I like the white horse better than the black'). In the sentence 'What did he do?' what is a noun: in 'What work did he do?' it is an adjective limiting the meaning of work. On the other hand, he or who cannot be used as an adjective to limit the meaning of a noun. We cannot say 'He man' or 'Who boy.' In such expressions as 'I, the master,' 'You, the pupil,' 'He, John,' we have a noun in apposition with the pronoun: John explains he; he does not limit the application of John. Lastly (3) some words treated of under the head of pronouns are purely adjectival in their use and cannot be employed without a noun. We can say

Basing our classification on their capacity for being used

(i) exclusively as true pronouns, i.e. as substitutes for nouns,

or (ii) as pronouns and also as adjectives, we arrange these words in the following groups.

VIII. POSSESSIVE-my, our; thy, your; her, its, their.

The Possessives ours, yours, hers, theirs, are used when no noun follows them, and in this respect they resemble nouns, but their force is purely adjectival. The same remarks apply to mine and thine in modern diction. His admits of use either with or without a noun following.

The Distributive pronoun every is now used only as an adjective, except occasionally in legal phraseology.

122. Definitions of the different kinds of Pronouns.

I.

Personal.

The Pronoun of the First Person is used in the singular to denote the speaker alone and in the plural to denote the speaker and others with whom he is associated.

The Pronoun of the Second Person is used of the person or persons addressed.

2.

A Demonstrative Pronoun is one which points out a thing.

3. A Reflexive Pronoun denotes the object of an action when the object is the same as the doer of the action.

4. A Relative Pronoun is one which refers to some other noun or pronoun and has the force of a conjunction.

5. An Interrogative Pronoun is one by means of which we ask a question.

6. An Indefinite Pronoun is one which does not point out precisely the object to which it refers.

7. A Distributive Pronoun is used when there are more things than one, to denote that the things are taken separately.

8. A Possessive Pronominal Adjective denotes that the noun which it limits is the name of a thing belonging to some other thing.

With the exception of the word Relative, the adjectives by which the kinds of pronouns are described convey a clearer notion of their characteristic features than these definitions will afford. The student should carefully notice the examples of pronouns given in the Table under their respective heads and observe the appropriateness of the names by which the various classes are distinguished.

We will now consider the different classes in detail.

123. I. The Pronouns of the First, Second, and Third Persons are declined thus:

124. Remarks on these Pronouns.

(1) There cannot be a plural of I at all, strictly speaking. We does not mean I+I, as horses means horse + horse : there is in the nature of things for each of us only one I. We signifies really I + you, or I + they.

(2) Why should the pronouns denoting the 1st and the 2nd Person have no distinctions of Gender, while the pronoun denoting the 3rd Person possesses a set of inflexions to mark Gender?

Because when I am addressing you, our sex is not a matter of doubt, as we are both of us present; but when we are speaking of a third thing, it is desirable for greater

certainty to indicate whether it possesses sex or not, and what sex, as it may be absent.

(3) The Pronoun of the Third Person is sometimes called a Personal pronoun, but it is better to class it with the Demonstratives. She was not originally the feminine of he she was the feminine of the Old English definite article or demonstrative adjective, which supplied us also with our forms of the plural number, they, their, them'.

The t in it is a sign of the neuter, like the d in illud. Its is a modern word, occurring rarely in Shakespeare, at the beginning of the 17th century, and frequently in Dryden, at the end of it. It appears once in the Authorized Version of the Bible (Levit. xxv. 5) as it is now printed, but not in the original edition of 1611. His was formerly the genitive case of both he and it: 'If the salt have lost his savour.'

(4) The forms of these Pronouns in the Possessive case are used no longer as Personal Pronouns, but only as Possessive Adjectives. Thus my and thy are equivalents of the Latin meus and tuus, not of mei and tui. Pars mei must be rendered 'a part of me,' not 'my part;' 'forgetfulness of you' is not expressed by saying 'your forgetfulness,' nor envy of them' by saying 'their envy.' This is the reason why we have enclosed these forms in brackets: they belong to the Personal Pronouns by origin, but have become purely adjectival in force.

(5) Thou is used only in addressing God and in the flights of poetry or rhetoric. But half a century ago the Quakers employed thou and thee in ordinary speech. In the Elizabethan age thou and thee expressed affection or

1 In Old English the Pronoun of the Third Person was declined in the nominative case thus: masc. he, fem. heo, neut. hit. Of these forms we have retained he and (h)it, but have borrowed the feminine she from the feminine seo of the Demonstrative, masc. se, fem. seo, neut. þæt ('that'). The colloquial 'em, as in 'Give it 'em,' is a survival of hem, the old dative plural of he, not a corruption of them.