The pronoun

THE PRONOUN

l. The problem of defining the pronominal head of an NP has been dealt with in a variety of ways. Let us examine the following survey:

l.l Pronouns are words used in a sentence like noun groups containing a noun. Some pronouns are used in order to avoid repeating nouns. (Collins,l995:540)

l.2 The classes of pronouns are personal, possessive, self pronouns, reciprocal, demonstrative, interrogative, relative, indefinite. (Zdrenghea & Townson, l995:52)

l.3 Pronouns are used in referring to people and things without naming them. They replace nouns or noun phrases. They make texts less repetitive and contribute to cohesion. (Veres et al., l996:369)

l.4 The general definition of pronoun is that it is a grammatically distinct class of noun-like words (typically a subclass of noun) whose most central members are characteristically used either anaphorically or deictically. (Huddleston, l99l:l02)

l.5 As with pro-forms in general, all pronouns have one thing in common: their referential meaning is determined purely by the grammar of English and the linguistic or situational context in which they occur. Beyond this, it is necessary to see pronouns as falling into the following classes and subclasses (Greenbaum & Quirk, l99l:l08)

l.6 The class of pronouns belongs to the broader category of substitutes or proforms, i.e., words referring through substitution to certain terms which, as a rule, have already been mentioned in the context (anaphoric reference) or are to be mentioned (anticipatory reference). (Bantas et al., l993:82)

l.7 The pronoun has no meaning of its own, it does not name in the strict sense of the word; it only makes references to somebody or something already mentioned in a text, during the conversation, etc., thus forming preeminently part of the theme. Sometimes, however, it refers to somebody or something that is going to be mentioned, in which case it forms part of the rheme. More often than not, the pronoun is a noun-substitute (Levitchi, l970:l00)

From the range of viewpoints defining pronouns, we are struck by the departure of these grammatical statements from what is conventionally known to work as a definition. This is so in spite of the fact that they have been extracted from the beginning of the respective chapters, from those parts procedurally known to answer the needs of defining concepts further applied in the approach.We have found out that this beginning on pronouns is often missing in the grammar books we looked into, or it may lapse into a classification instead of a definition. Hence we conclude that this is the result of pronouns forming a very heterogeneous, hard-to-define and wide-ranging set of linguistic items, and all the descriptions above contribute something useful and valid to the picture. (l.l) insists on usage; (l.2) denominates; (l.3) deals with reference plus function plus stylistic effects; (l.4) is interested in taxonomy and use; (l.5) explains the semantics of this part of speech and classifies; (l.6) insists on the referential problem; (l.7) explains the substituting mechanism versus reference.

2. General considerations about the category of person, which is put forth by pronouns and corresponds to inflections of the verb, should in all probability start from a discrimination between the ordinary sense of personal paraphrased as denoting a person, a human being, (e.g., personal gender vs.nonpersonal gender) and the special meaning of pertaining to the grammatical category of person (e.g., personal pronouns). If this distinction is not understood, then learners of grammar may get confused about applying the description of personal to the pronoun it substituting for inanimate entities or about who not included among personal pronouns despite its reference to persons only (as opposed to which).

According to Lyons (1968), the category of person is clearly definable with reference to the notion of participant-roles: the first person is used by the speaker to refer to himself as a subject of discourse; the second person is used to refer to the hearer; and the third person is used to refer to persons or things other than the speaker and hearer. Person is a deictic category since it can only be defined in direct relation with the speaking ego.

The meanings of the three persons are summarized by Quirk et al. (l99l:340) in a square, the boxes inside it being either in thick lines to comprise the singular pronouns or in thin lines for the plural number pronouns. The letter symbols should be read as s for speaker, h for hearer and o for other.

The category of person achieves one of three main types of reference described by

Halliday & Hasan (l976): (l) personal reference, reference by means of function in the speech

situation, through the category of person;

(2) demonstrative reference, reference by means of location;

(3) comparative reference, indirect reference, by means of Identity

or Similarity. We will later have recourse to them again.

Within the category of person, several oppositions can be worked out:

an opposition between participants and non-participants in the communicative act. This

is reflected in the arrangement of first and second persons together as opposed to third

person;

the opposition between first and second persons that can only be [+DEF][+HUM], and

the third person that can have all possible gender features;

first and second persons on the one hand, and third person on the other, as possibly

[+PROX] or [-PROX], and some items [-DEF] (indefinite pronouns);

the opposition between the speaker (first person) and hearer (second person), the speak-

er being called the dominant term of the opposition; the fact can be argued with the

meaning of the plural personal pronoun we: it always includes reference to I and just

optionally the reference to you.

There are cases, analysed as stylistic uses of person, when noncorrespondence is signalled between syntactic and semantic person:

(a) the attempt to attenuate unpleasantness: Mother to Child, Lets go to bed now.

(first person plural instead of second person singular);

(b) wish to persuade: Teacher to Students, Why shouldnt we take the test as soon as next

week? (first person plural instead of second person plural);

(c) manifestation of sympathy: Doctor to Patient, And how are we today? (first person plural instead of second person singular);

(d) manifestation of love: Aunt to Niece, Aunt Mary loves you so much. (third person singular instead of first person singular);

(e) pre-stage of consciousness of self: very young Children about themselves, Bob is hungry (third person singular instead of first person singular);

(f) formal communication (on behalf of an organization) when the precise identity of the addressee(s) is unknown: the Management to Client(s), Any inconvenience to clients is regretted during repair work to the premises. ( no reference to Addresser and third person plural instead of first person plural and second person singular).

Social convention regulates understanding of the involvement of participants in at least two other instances of communication: on the telephone, when the identification by third person of both addresser and addressee usually prefaces discourse and when both participants are implicit in wishes (Good luck! interpreted as I wish you good luck!).

Another problem with stylistic colouring is the possibility of substituting ordinary personal pronouns by idiomatic collocations, for example: present company substitutes for we, number one and yours truly substitute for I, the party in question substitutes for he.

Examples of deferential substitutes, analysable as manifestations of social deixis, are Your Highness/Excellency/Lordship, etc.

Generic person is a term used in connection with certain uses of the pronouns one, we, you, they. The choice between them depends on an emotional factor, namely the wish of the speaker to be included or not in the general assertion. The speaker can be looked upon as totally detached from the context of situation in one, included in we, making a special appeal to the audience in you and keeping himself in the background in they.

To sum up the discussion of person, we shall say about this category that it is inherent with nouns and pronouns (nominals) and introduced by an agreement transformation with verbs.

3. Tradition in grammar points to the following classes of pronouns: personal, possessive, self pronouns, reciprocal, demonstrative, interrogative, relative, indefinite. Before going on with a selection of grammatical statements about each, wed like to suggest further groupings that can be achieved with the various components of the traditional classification.

Quirk et al. (l99l:345) isolate personal, possessive and reflexive pronouns for evincing all three persons and call them central pronouns. Actually, the last two are considered as derived from the first, the possessives as genitive forms of personal pronouns in old English and the reflexives as objective forms of the personal pronouns plus the noun stem self.

On the other hand, the reflexives and the reciprocals can be put together on account of the requirement to mention their antecedents within the same sentence.

Another grouping can distinguish between pronominal forms that are marked for the subjective and objective functions and unmarked case forms (e.g., he-him, who-whom vs. you, it, which). We can also separate pronouns that have gender distinctions from those that dont. Still another grouping brings together the larger category of pronouns that can be used as substitutes (third person personal pronouns, the reflexives, the reciprocals, the possessives, the relative-interrogatives) versus those that cannot. And this last problem brings us to the question of the functions of pronouns.

4. The referring function is fulfilled by those items relating the hearer/reader to non-linguistic or linguistic reality. The descriptive role can vary (for example, a minimal descriptive content for he with the features of animateness, human and male after the proper noun Tom has been used co-referentially in the same piece of discourse). Another parameter that varies is the dependence on the context of utterance for the proper understanding of the referential function of pronouns.

The connecting function of pronouns is a syntagmatic phenomenon and is one of the devices that ensure continuity in the transmission of information. Pronouns connect portions of discourse by repeating information. The repetition can take the form of identity of reference as distinct from the identity of sense, for example:

The editor wanted to find a printing mistake and he finally saw it. (identity of reference)

The editor wanted to find a printing mistake and he finally saw one. (identity of sense)

Pronouns analysed as substitutes belong to the class of pro-forms, to which Dutescu-Coliban (l986:292) adds pro-verbs (e.g., Mary washes up daily while John does so only occasionally), pro-adverbs (e.g., We went to the school and from there to the Zoo) and pro-sentences (e.g., He got married again,I dont believe it), and suggests that pronouns could be more adequately called pro-noun phrases, since what they stand for are actually Nps, not nouns. The one pronoun that may stand for a N is one.

A collateral effect of substitution is the economical function of pronouns, since they save the time and effort of speakers (the so-called Minimax Principle: minimum of effort for maximum of effect).

5. Personal pronouns can be defined as the most basic class of pronouns to which the category of person applies. (Huddleston, l99l:97). Personal pronouns indicate first, second and third persons, as already shown (otherwise the persons are explained as the speaker, the person spoken to, the person spoken about). Their morphological characteristics show that personal pronouns have number (morphologically unrelated forms), person (as indicated above), case (the contrast between subjective and objective forms) and gender (two contrastive pairs: personal vs. non-personal gender and masculine vs. feminine gender). Quirk et al. (l99l:337) facilitate the understanding of case forms with their frequent irregularities in usage by broadly dividing the finite clause into subject territory (the pre-verbal subject position) and object territory (all noun-phrase positions apart from what immediately precedes the verb). The problem with informal English is that it makes use of objective forms instead of subjective ones required by formal use, when found in the object territory. For instance, the answer to Whos there? is (Its)me because It is I sounds unnaturally stiff. The phenomenon generates hypercorrect applications that constitute errors, in fact ( He says he saw Tom and I last night). The coordinated Nps in the object territory have been mistaken for coordinated Nps grammatically expressed in subject territory (Lets you and I decide it). Nonstandard usage records such examples as Mary and him are going abroad and even Me and Jane are going there, the latter case trespassing also against the polite sequence that prescribes for the first-person mention to occur second place. If prescription weakens before actual usage, the asterisk above should be left out and the forms be considered acceptable.

Finally, several things should be noted about the use of pronouns in nominal positions, in an overview of major statements, some of them new and others already made.

Except for who, all lexemes which inflect for case belong to the class of personal pronouns.

The sets of pronoun forms meant are the subject form, the object form and the genitive form; they all make up the group of CENTRAL pronouns in Greenbaum & Quirks presentation (l99l), that is to say personal, reflexive and possessive pronouns. They have one thing in common: they are all used without a determiner; in this they resemble proper names.

Subject and object forms do not occur in all nominal positions, but the genitive forms do.

Some of the pronouns in nominal positions differ from most other nominal elements in the way they are stressed. The rule is for nominal items to occur under heavy stress, but the subject and object forms are usually unstressed or weakly stressed, though they certainly may get stressed for the sake of contrast.

There are certain restrictions on the use of pronouns as direct objects (DO) after a preceding indirect object (IO), e.g., Mary gave her daughter two tips. She gave her two tips. She gave two tips her. If both the DO and IO are pronouns, there is vacillation. The tendency is to put DO first, especially if it is it: She gave it me. This construction is found old-fashioned and there is preference for She gave it to me. The latter construction is on the increase.

There has been a great deal of controversy about the position It (That) is (was) ___ . Many grammarians have insisted on the subject form as the only correct one. But in everyday language it sounds pedantic. If a relative clause follows, the subject forms are often used. Thus, one would normally say It was he who objected. The principle governing the choice of form (Cristophersen & Sandved, l982:114) in cases like these has been called relative attraction: the subject form is used if the following relative is the subject of the relative clause; the object form if the following relative is the Do or IO of the relative clause.

Vacillation is also found after (a) than and as; (b) but and except. The (a) items originally were not prepositions and therefore had no influence on the case of the following word. Still, a distinction has to be made between I like you more than she (= more than she does) and I like you more than her (= more than I like her) . Usage promotes object forms: He is taller than me. You are not as good as him. As for the (b) items, sometimes they are treated as prepositions and sometimes as conjunctions, e.g., No one but/except me noticed it and No one noticed it but/except I /(more usually) me.

5.l   I - the first-person personal pronoun is noticeable for its spelling with a capital letter. The reason is given by Jespersen (apud Dutescu-Coliban, l986:299) as more innocent, namely, the orthographic habits in the Middle Ages of using a long I whenever the letter was isolated or formed the last letter or a group; the numeral one was written j or I, just as much as the pronoun. Thus, no sociological inference can be drawn from the peculiarity.

Textual structure tends to be punctuated by periodic pronominal references to both participants in communication. As a rule, the hearer is addressed by name, at least initially, maybe not for clarity as much as out of courtesy and/or friendliness. Moreover, the speaker often chooses to repeat reference to himself, generally giving an impression of modesty sooner than of self-centredness. For example, Id like to say I think I seem to remember it occurs to me I mean etc.

It seems difficult to find for I (or you, for that matter) any other function than extralinguistically referential; yet, in quoted sequences, one can find an anaphoric interpretation (e.g., There was a surprise note from Mary. She said briefly,I am not coming home. )

The underlining signals coreferentiality.

5.2 The pronoun we is used to denote plurality of persons of which the speaker is a member. It may be read in a variety of combinatory formulas: you and I, he/she/they and I, he/she/they and you and I. The main point is that we can either include or exclude the hearer(s), and sometimes reference is ambiguous. Therefore, one can speak of inclusive we(As we saw in the previous caseetc.), exclusive we (We hope you enjoyed the flight) and ambiguous we (We must see this show next week, everybodys speaking). A speaker can combine inclusive and exclusive we within the same sentence: We can see now (me, the speaker, and you, my audience) why we have a poor image abroad (we, Romanians).

If we has a generic value, it can be glossed as the speaker plus everybody else, in which a suggestion of modesty is also felt, making it distinct from the other generic pronouns (for example, We dont get any younger versus One doesnt get any younger). Another modest we is dubbed editorial we, used instead of the first-person singular in writings/prefaces when the author politely conceals his/her own merits, or at least pretends to do so. Social deixis is included in the so-called royal we (the plural of majesty), whose reflexive correspondent is ourself. The emotional/sympathetic kind of we has already been discussed.

5.3 You - the pronoun of the second person - neutralizes the contrast of number. Sometimes additions make number clear (You Tom can be annoying sometimes; You all returned shortly, cant you remember?) . Historically, thou was the singular affected by a note of intimacy and even inferiority of the person spoken to. This, combined with the yearning for democracy ( the so-called process of democratic levelling) , discontinued the use of thou and the only form you no longer indicates social distance in itself. A second neutralization is recorded and implicitly a gap in the expression of social deixis. You in contemporary English leads to difficulties in translating from and into Romanian, a language with a refined sub-system of the honorifics. If English speakers need a substitute indicator of social distance, they have syntagmatic resources, such as the expansion of the utterance with the family name unpreceded by Mr or Mrs. An exchange such as Bring in those files, Johnson ! Yes, Mr Brown! leaves us in no doubt as to who is the boss and who is the subordinate.

you is not normally included in the imperative pattern, but it may be used for emphasis (Stay in! versus You stay in!)

The generic use has been mentioned; it vaguely denotes someone (it may be the speaker himself) to whom something happens in the ordinary course of events (You never can tell). This use can combine with direct second-person address within the same utterance: In the sixteenth century, you had a meagre chance of being taught to read, you see. Pedantic grammarians even deny grammaticalness to the first you, since it is impossible that the same referents of you in our century be the referents meant for the sixteenth century; instead they recommend the use of one to make expression more accurate.

5.4 The third person singular has distinct forms for the masculine (he, him), for the feminine(she, her) and for the neuter (it).Thus we have signalled the marking for gender, number and case. He and she can be used (l) deictically (Look at him! Tell her to stop crying!), (2) anaphorically (Weve asked Mary to take charge, and shes refusing!), (3) cataphorically (Hes got talent, this boy!), (4) generically (He who hesitates is lost ), the last use mentioned being considered archaic.

He is occasionally introduced in statements referring to plants, objects (lifeless things) to express either affection , familiarity , or unpleasantness of relation, such as in the personification contained in Death will come when he is least expected. The same stylistic overtones are acquired by she. The distinction between the two gender-marking pronouns occurs when generalized meanings are in view, a case traditionally solved by he used indiscriminately, e.g., If a person has no strong political opinions, he cant join politics. Subsequent to feminist reactions, if both sexes may be implied, speakers are to use the cumbersome formula he or she, eventually replaced in its turn by the cautious they, so that no one might feel hurt. If at first declared colloquial English, the plural form has gained ground and is particularly favoured when the antecedent is an indefinite pronoun, such as in Everyone would do the same if they were bound to take steps.

It is the third person pronoun that requires more careful treatment. It refers to (l) things and abstractions (they are naturally sexless), (2) to animals (sentimentally indifferent to humans), very young children (though in all probability not in the speech of parents), persons (when identification is needed). It can be x-rayed from a positional viewpoint too: the impersonal it recorded above cumulates demonstrative values in the last case , which is also a good example of cataphora (an example: I can hear someone coming. It must be John.), then it anticipating an object clause ( I consider it necessary to repeat what Ive said ) or introductory-anticipatory ( It was no use lying for days in bed, without a peep at the world) anticipating the subject clause and introductory-emphatic ( It was the fresh wind rustling the poplar leaves that kept me awake) emphasizing a particular part of a sentence, ultimately an idiomatic empty it (see Bantas l993:89 list to foot it, to pub it, to tram it, to cab it, to lord it), a rare construction, noticeable for the use of an intransitive verb with an it object that makes the whole sound slangy.

So, if we analyse it in the light of the information structure of the statement including it, we can conclude that this pronoun discharges a significant role in distributing the information load: it delays the information ( anticipatory it) or it brings it to the fore (emphatic it). Significantly enough, this is the only criterion that can distinguish between the two it occurrences in I saw it was easy to guess who his wife was and I saw it was his wife who could be easily guessed in the crowd.

Anticipatory, therefore cataphoric it , presupposes the existence of a coreference pair in which the subsequent element may be: (a) a NP (It is foolish, this answer of yours!), (b) a that-clause (It is understandable that he wont do it), (c) an if-clause ( It might be of interest if some other families came too), (d) a gerund ( It took me two weeks cramming for school to get a perfect scoring in the test) , and (e) an infinitive (the afore-mentioned example).

The it anticipating a clause is so weak in descriptive content that it can be almost interpreted as impersonal. This is particularly true of constructions with (a) verbs such as seem, happen, turn out, appear; (b) the passive of some verbs, such as say, expect, suspect, know, suppose, believe; (c) a number of adjectives, like clear, obvious, natural, necessary.

The empty/meaningless/nonsignificant it shares the purely formal function contained in the examples above with the pronoun occurring in other slangy or merely colloquial constructions where a transitive verb is used: Give it him hot! God damn it! I like it here! Such examples can either be read as without a referent for it or as situationally clear, therefore cases of exophoric reference.

Omission of it may occur, which is contrary to the principles of English syntax; an expected it-subject may miss and the respective clause appears without a subject in the surface structure. The case is looked upon as quasi-idiomatic and is illustrated by a limited number of constructions introduced by as and than: They attempted, as far as was possible,; Students, as is usual,; We shall act as seems best; The circumstances are as follows:; As has already been explained, ; a book more rewarding than might appear.

A final point to be made about versatile it is that particular use in which it is open to erroneous application instead of existential there. When the subject is an extended NP, both it and there become useful in shifting the weight of the information towards the end of the sentence. A rule to remember is that the pronoun cannot anticipate the NP, its descriptive content being traced back to a preceding part in the text. So, we have to do with an anaphoric reference that simply lacks in there. How can we distinguish between There followed an argument and It followed an argument, accepting the second utterance as a grammatically issued one? We simply create the preceding utterance to build up a situational context.

Mother and daughter took different views of the matter. There followed an argument. (l)

The daughter came up with an interesting idea. It followed an argument in which the mother had obviously disagreed.

Or, to add another exemplification, the question Whats that,over there? can precede only the statement Its a cake left on the tray, and not the statement Theres a cake left on the tray, which may be construed as answering the complaint of someone whos starving.

5.5 They functions (a) referentially (Katy has many friends and Papa once undertook to keep a list of them), (b) deictically (gestural deixis in They took my toys), (c) anaphorically when the antecedent is an indefinite pronoun, as already shown (No one laughs, and then they say it was meant to be a joke), (d) cataphorically, in spoken English (They are good, these peaches), (e) generically, as already shown ( the meaning is people, They say its no big matter to be a grown-up), (f) impersonally (vaguely indicating a group, They bake nice bread, far back in the country).`

Our final section on personal pronouns will refer to modification and determination of personal pronouns. A personal pronoun can be preceded by nonrestrictive modification mostly accompanying first and second person forms and effecting an emotional or rhetorical colouring of the message, e.g., Poor us! Silly me! Good old you! Those are examples of informal English. As already remarked, prehead determiners do not occur, yet posthead pronominalized forms all, both, each do occur: We both need assistance. You all have money to spend. They each smiled meaningfully.

The cataphoric relation of a third-person pronoun to a postmodifying restrictive relative clause generates a literary and somewhat archaic style in the area of proverbs and aphorisms, but not only. He who is unconscious of mistakes (preferably in everyday language, Whoever or The person who); She who must obey/be obeyed (The girl/woman who); Those who can improve manners (it is wrong to use *They who).

Pronouns with postmodification can also occur in appositive constructions (here is a very informal example:Us locals are going to protest! ), nonrestrictive relative clauses ( You, to whom we owe everything , ), adverbs ( Could you there collect your passports at the desk?), prepositional phrases ( We of the modern age are skeptical in most things; It is very much the concern of you / us in the learned professions.) The last case usually occurs with first person plural and second person. To this, we add postmodifying emphatic pronouns, such as you yourself, we ourselves, etc.

6. Possessive pronouns are different from other items with personal reference in that they demand two referents: the possessor and the possessed. We say that possessive pronouns are doubly anaphoric. In their paradigm, its is the one form of very rare use as a pronoun. However, since its occurrence is possible, Dutescu-Coliban (l986:315) proposes the following example: The childrens health is poor except the babys and its is perfect.

The forms of the possessive pronouns are the genitive forms of the personal pronouns. They have person, number and gender distinctions and they have nominal functions in the sentence plus the attributive function in of phrases. They can be substituted by possessive determiners plus own (a) to emphasize ownership and (b) to express a contrast, e.g., (a) She has always wanted a room of her own. (b) He mother cooks meals for her, but I cook my own.

7. Reflexive pronouns have been explained as combinations of the noun stem self and an article-like type of determiner (Dutescu-Coliban, l986:319). These pronouns are grammatically accounted for as showing coreference of the direct object or prepositional object with the subject. Compare Our boss thinks too much of himself to Our boss thinks too much of him. Or discriminate between Mary caught herself lying and Mary caught her lying.

Thomson & Martinet (l995) note that if the preposition indicates locality, speakers use the ordinary and not the reflexive pronouns. They illustrate the case with They put the child between them (*themselves). Similarly, He doesnt have any money on him. Did you take your dog with you? As a rule, if there is no doubt about the identity of the person denoted by the pronoun, the simple and not the reflexive form is used after the preposition: We have the whole day before us.

Reflexive use points to an internal sentence anaphora, yet sometimes reflexives occur without an antecedent: (a) when they replace a personal pronoun in coordinated Nps, The guests were myself and Mary ; (b) after as, like, but, except, he saw nobody but herself guilty of all crime conceivable ; (c) to avoid decision between subjective and objective forms of personal pronouns, No man was ever more forgiving than myself ; (d) to better balance a sentence ending in a pronominal item that may sound inelegant because of shortness, The three thieves divided the loot among them/themselves.

7.l A few verbs are practically always used reflexively; they never take another kind of object but the reflexive pronoun, e.g., to pride oneself (on smth), to perjure oneself, to avail oneself (of an opportunity), to ingratiate oneself. They are the so-called inherently reflexive verbs (most of them archaic).

7.2 Other verbs can take the self- object, but not in the same sense, e.g., to behave vs. to behave oneself ( I hope the children will behave themselves), to resign vs. to resign oneself, to deport vs. to deport oneself.

7.3 In other cases, there are differences of meaning between the verb used reflexively and the same verb with another object, e.g., to apply oneself to a task and to apply a new method ; to help an acquaintance and to help oneself to a dish.

7.4 Still another group of verbs can drop the reflexive pronoun without much difference of meaning, e.g. to prepare/ dress/shave/wash/adjust (oneself).

The reflexive pronoun can have a weak stress or a strong stress, function of the intentions of stating, implying or ignoring a particular contrast.

8. Emphatic pronouns are the self- compounds used for the sake of emphasis, always strongly stressed, with positional mobility and the possibility of omission without destroying the sense of the sentence, Shakespeare himself never wrote a better line than that.

Emphasizing pronouns can have the meaning of alone or without help when they have by with them.These combinations can be considered idiomatic.

When placed immediately after the noun/pronoun meant to be brought into relief, self- forms become additionally emphatic.

In short, the analysis of pronominal emphasis goes along three lines:

(l) emphatic + appositive use, e.g., He gave it to me himself / He himself gave it to me.

(2)emphatic + reflexive use, e.g., Theres no need to be ashamed of me, you ought to be

ashamed of yourself.

(3)used when a pronoun form might be expected, e.g., She is about the same age as yourself.

The matter concerns no one but himself.

Reciprocal pronouns express mutual relations between two or several objects. The general recommendation is to use each other of only two , and one another of more than two. In contemporary English, however, common usage no longer makes this difference.

Sometimes reciprocal pronouns are used in the genitive, e.g., The boys whispered in each others ears. Apes often groom one anothers fur.

A number of verbs resemble the optionally reflexive verbs in that they do not always take a pronoun in the surface structure. For example, in connection with marry, if John marries Mary, Mary also marries John. So, we can simply say John and Mary married / kissed/ fought/ met/ resemble, etc.

l0. Demonstrative pronouns are used to express spatial and temporal relationships between objects and the speaker. They have the feature [+ Proximity], otherwise put as nearness and remoteness. The same items can be used [+ PRO], that is as pronouns or as adjectives in traditional grammars, and this holds good not only for the basic list of this, that and their plural forms, but also for a number of items that can be included on the list too, so, such, same, the other(s), the former-the latter. In the presentation to come, we will show concern for both pronominal and determinative [-PRO] usage, not to revert to the same basic ideas when the category of determination is approached further in this study.

l0.l This-that denote the contrast proximity-distance from the standpoint of the speaker. However, their interpretation is often subjective, blurring the distinction above. In the following example, Columbus discovered the Bahamas in l492 and this changed the course of history, the event is distant in time, but the pronoun indicates nearness simply because the fact has just been mentioned by the speaker. Conversely, the pronoun for great distances applied to events near in time can help produce an effect of psychological distancing, e.g., Now, you are in the wrong again, surely thats the end of your career.

The singular forms refer to a situation (like above), to something inferred from it , or - as shown below - to relations engaged with the cotext (parts of the text including them), resulting in the following uses:

(a) anaphoric - Youre working hard and this/that will affect your health.

(b) cataphoric - This is our plan: once the shock is over, bring in a nurse and help Amy get through with her illness. That makes sense, what youve just said!

(c) exophoric - I hate working like this! (= in this way reference to something outside the text).

(d) idiomatic - We spent hours chatting about this and that.

When the demonstratives make reference to a larger segment of discourse (it may be even a sequence of sentences), the larger segment can be designated as sentential antecedent.

When this introduces new information in an existential sentence to mark the sentence as a sample of oral dialect (in a typical way, the beginning of a joke), the function of this is uncharacteristic because it replaces indefiniteness of description, as expected of information totally unshared by the interlocutor. Speech, in this case, is described as uneducated, e.g. There was this place, or - in permissive grammars - mere conversational story-telling, e.g., At school we had to wear these awful uniforms

An emphatic, unfavourable comment can be achieved by means of the pattern THIS / THAT+ NOUN + OF + POSSESSIVE , such as in That car of his is always breaking down. Still with informality of expression, speakers use the demonstrative with the meaning of so ( I didnt realise it was going to be this hot. Why couldnt you be that clever? ) , and with the meaning of not very ( The thriller has not been all that thrilling! ) .

For an accurate understanding of how native speakers resort to the hinting potential of the demonstratives, knowledge of the situation of utterance is imperious, as long as even measurements, essential factors in deciding upon [+ PROX], can be a matter of psychological rather than real perceptions. It is simpler to say that this is typically associated with what is before us and that with what is behind us. Nevertheless, reference is quite flexible, since we say both this morning and this September or even this century with the same intuition of something involving us immediately.

In sum, both this/these and that/those are used to refer to (a) things;

(b) people;

(c) situations.

As for distances, the preferred arrangement of tenses is also suggestive. Consider the following examples: Listen to this! (the information is delivered instantaneously); This will be interesting! (things are going to happen); Who said that? (the action is finished); That was annoying! (the situation is ended).

The reference to people is restricted to a number of conventional situations. We can mention: a) a rather inconsiderate way of asking about identity (Whos that?) or referring to identity (That should be our new teacher); b) introducing people (This is my brother and his wife Helen) - one should note that the singular form of the demonstrative is used even when introducing more than one person; c) on the telephone: Americans use only this (Hello! This is Martin Smith. Whos this?) , British people use (a) this to introduce themselves and (b) that to ask who the other person is.

In a rather formal style, instead of the definite article preceding words like part, native speakers use that to talk about part of a place or thing: Ecofreaks are concerned with that part of the world which forms the immediate environment. Similarly, they use those instead of the in front of a plural noun to refer to a group of people or things which is part of a larger group: Students should write off to those bodies which provide grants.

A word of warning should be passed on the use of this as a pronoun to refer to a person who has just been mentioned, simply because in Romanian this is current reference.Instead, in English we may use he or she or a coreferential NP, e.g.,

R: M. se incumeta sa-i puna o intrebare americanului mai scund si acesta se prefacu a nu

intelege

E: M. ventured to ask a question to the shorter American and he / the man pretended not

to understand.

Another problems for Romanians is when they translate asta-seara, because English speakers do not say this night. They refer to the previous night as last night and to the night of the present day as tonight. In time expressions, this morning/afternoon/evening refer to the morning/afternoon/evening of the present day. This + weekend/name of a day/name of a month/name of a season refers to the next weekend, day, etc. Finally, this can also be used with one of those lexemes to refer to the previous weekend, etc.( His presence this weekend was especially ominous) .

The Romanian asemenea is not automatically translated by such to show similarity when we are making reference to something that is present or to the place where we are; for example, supposing we admire someones bracelet, we do not say, Id like such a bracelet but Id like a bracelet like that. Similarly, we do not say about the town where we are living, Theres not much to do in such a town, but Theres not much to do in a town like this.

l0.2 The demonstrative meaning is included in substituting devices occasioned by versatile words like such, so, same, one.

Such referring to a phrase anaphorically or cataphorically can be illustrated with We spent our summer holiday in England, if rain every day can be called such. Such is life: always too short. The item under discussion has been shown to identify, and it can also point to similarity even for a noun not expressed but implied by the context: He went on a safari and got killed by a lion, or an elephant, or some such.

Such with a meaning similar to pronominal that substitutes for both Nps and previous clauses. Moreover, this double possibility of substitution may occur when reference is exophoric (there is no straightforward clue in the text): My boss is always telling me not to forget such and such, and to take such and such into account.

Such as a substitute head element (in ellipsis) can be quantified:

We have been asked to consider the needs of the moment. Many such have already been tackled in the last few months. Maybe none such will ever come your way.

l0.3 So is declared by grammar books an anomalous word. Grammarians treat it as a substitute form, but it does not easily fit into any of the known word classes. If it is a pronoun, then it functions as direct object. In the examples below, so substitutes first for an Adj.P and next for an NP: Your work is not yet consistent in style, but will no doubt become so.

If hes a criminal, its his parents who have made him so.

So it appears and so it seems are common expressions of reaction to previous utterances.

l0.4 Substitution by one/ones does not replace a whole antecedent NP, but only part of it. One is always accompanied by a determiner, a modifier or a qualifier. Here are some possible patterns: Det + H this one, each one

Det + M + H the interesting one

Det + Det +m + H the few ripe ones

Det + H + Q that one over there

Det + M + H + Q the fresh ones from the country

l0.5 Whereas one/ones replace only part of an antecedent NP, the same can substitute for a whole NP, e.g., What make of car are you going to buy? The same as I always buy.

The scope of substitution by the same may extend beyond the NP to a clause, e.g.,

The journey was too long. I think the same.

A note should be made of the fact that the first example above contains ellipsis, while the second example does not. When the same expresses identity with the presupposed noun, it is often followed by substitute one/ones ( for the example above, the same one as I always buy).

A number of fixed colloquial expressions can be recorded for this item: same again,please! (customer to bartender); its all the same; just the same; same to you!; thanks all the same! etc.

ll.0 Relative pronouns can only be approached syntactically, by studying the classification and informative contribution of relative clauses introduced by relative pronouns. The following characteristics can be listed for them:

Relative pronouns stand first in a clause, except when preceded by a preposition.

Their choice will be determined according to whether the relative clause in which they appear is defining or non-defining.

They can refer to both singular and plural antecedents.

Syntactically, they have nominal functions in the subordinate clause they introduce.

They differ from pure conjunctions; the latter are devoid of notional meaning and syntactic function.

There are basic relative pronouns (see the chart below) and other words used as relative pronouns ( as, but ).

ll.l.1 Here is a summary presentation of the choice of relative pronouns introducing defining/restrictive relative clauses. Such clauses describe the preceding noun in such a way as to distinguish it from other nouns of the same class. We have attempted to cover the range of pronominal choices as decided by reference either to persons or to objects, on the one hand; on the other hand, we have shown the case when they are subjects as distinct from the case when they are (prepositional) objects of the verb. They do not vary for masculine or feminine.

who

student that remained

The  mistake which

who(m)

student that

The  mistake [zero] I glanced at

which

There are prepositions that cannot be postponed. Who is preferred to that when it is subject and when the antecedent is personal. That is preferred to who(m) when it is object, perhaps as an answer to the question of choosing between who and whom. E.g., the woman who saw me vs. the woman that I saw. When the antecedent is long and complex, wh- pronouns are preferred ( He was the only cultivated and kind-hearted monarch who ever sat on the throne of that country) ; when the antecedent is an indefinite pronoun or a superlative, the relative that is recommended ( Someone that I had noticed earlier came back with a spade. The best book that you can lay hands on should make your holiday reading) ; when the verb in the relative clause is be, the complement pronoun is that or zero (John is not the man ( that) he was); when the antecedent is a collective noun denoting persons, which is used if the noun is regarded singular ( The team which came out first in the league) and who is used if the noun is regarded plural ( The team who left the stadium earlier). That is used after the opening It is ( It is the educator that must learn all his life, not the educatee). That cannot be preceded by a preposition ( Here is the book that I was telling you about).

ll.1.2 The relative pronoun introducing non-defining relative clauses has for an antecedent a noun that is already definite. The pronoun can never be omitted. As before, in (ll.l), native speakers do not use whom if they can avoid it. Whose, by exception, may refer to inanimates (Those jars of honey, whose price has recently gone up, ). The possessive of which is still possible for things, but in very formal English. Compare: (a) The first aeroplane, the inventors of which were the Wright brothers, made many a doubting Thomas say that air-travel would never be commercially successful. (b) The first aeroplane, whose inventors were etc. The following pattern, BOTH / SOME / MOST / ALL / SEVERAL / FEW + OF + WHOM / WHICH , can be used for both people and things.

When the verb of the non-defining relative clause is a phrasal combination, this combination is preferably treated as a whole, consequently the adverb or the preposition does not get separated from the verb:e.g., (a) to run out on a friend / ally / partner = to forsake /abandon him ; The guy, whom your brother has run out on, is contemplating revenge.

(b) to do away with = put an end to ; That bad practice, which they had done away with long before, wasnt virtually forgotten by any of its victims.

The importance of commas - as affecting meanings when introduced in the sentence - is shown below in the change from a defining to a non-defining relative clause:

(a) The children who were always absent on such an occasion were already there this time.

(b) The children, who were always absent on such an occasion, were already there this time.

Example (a) implies that there were other children as well, who always attended similar occasions; example (b) makes no division into attending and non-attending, because the same children mentioned for a subject were at the same time in the habit of absenting themselves from all the other occasions.

11.1.3 The relative pronoun sometimes introduces clauses with a loose non-restrictive relationship, almost indistinguishable from coordination. There are grammarians to say that the story is merely continued (Thomson & Martinet, l995:88) by means of the connective relative clause, or that further relevant information is offered about the antecedent of the pronoun , in which case the clause is called continuative or amplifying (Cobb & Gardiner, l994:l62).

(a) The English Channel has a character of its own, which distinguishes it from other seas and straits.

(b) He got lost on the way back, which was easily covered by the others.

(c) He got lost on the way back, which surprised everybody.

(d) He got lost on the way back, which was enveloped in fog.

We note that the comma is used as with non-defining clauses, from which it is often hard to make the distinction, ultimately. Example (a) can be rephrased as and this distinguishes; example (b) can be otherwise expressed by but the others easily covered it ; example (c) makes use of a relative pronoun standing for a whole clause; example (d) is closer to adverbial subordination , which becomes clear if we replace which by when ( when it was)

The connective relative clause can also accept the pattern with of which, this time not substitutable by whose, e.g.

The stewardess looked in with offers of tea and toast, the very idea of which was simply wonderful.

11.2 As used as a relative pronoun refers to a nominal element together with as/so, same, such to express comparative association, e.g.

He takes a cold on journeys in the same way as I do.

She was so gracious and old-fashioned as had ever been noticed in noble families.

We were told such things as all respectable people must believe in.

11.3 But used as a relative pronoun combines with a negative form in the preceding clause. The convenient beginning of the sentence is There is / was : There was not a hot night but made her feel a longing for fresh air, leading her to the garden.

11.4 A subclass apart from the relatives discussed so far is who, what, which introducing other types of clauses, not having an antecedent expressed, and connecting a noun clause type (the subject, predicative and object clauses) to the main clause. Such pronouns, called conjunctive pronouns by some grammarians (see Bantas, l993:99), have an indefinite reference (so, they might be placed by the side of indefinite pronouns) and are used for introducing indirect questions:

I should read through what I have written so far.

What he does outside classes is none of your business.

I wonder what he does in his spare time.

What he needs is a good dentist = A good dentist is what he needs. (the emphasis is on different parts of the sentence)

Who he wanted to check is nobodys affair.

They did not like who was elected.

We want to know who was there.

11.5 A note of caution requires us to compare: (a) A message that was too late to work its effect was handed to them from the head of the department. (b) A message that he would be late was handed in the last minute.

Both underlinings point out qualification / postmodification of the headword message. In (a) there is a relative clause introduced by a relative pronoun which enters the clause structure as subject; in (b) the particle that introduces a clause without being an element in its structure and the clause is a restrictive appositive. Such appositive clauses follow an abstract noun as a head of the extended phrase (e.g., the belief that; a remark that; the answer that). One more example from Quirk et al. (l99l:371):

I agree with the old saying that absence makes the heart grow fonder.

ll.6 In rhetorical English, who, which, what are compounded with ever, suggesting the meaning of indiscrimination, lack of distinction. The compounds may contribute concessive nuances to the statement.Not having an expressed antecedent, they introduce a different type of relative clause, called free relative clause.

Say whatever you like = Say the thing that you like = Say anything you like.

Dont listen to whoever told you that = Dont listen to the person who told you that.

Whichever has a selective meaning:

Buy the paperback or the hardback copy, whichever is to be found now on sale.

Whatever may suggest indifference or ignorance:

He told me to look at the murals, whatever they were.

The reference in whoever is to somebodys unknown identity, with or without a concessive overtone: Whoever we vote for, prices will soar.

Whoever answered the phone had a discouraging harshness in his voice.

ll.7 Here are some sample analyses of the relative pronouns, before passing on to the interrogatives:

I looked through a soft, golden haze that told me it was late afternoon.

- defining, non-personal, subjective, alternative form: which.

But I am the one who has made this possible.

- defining, personal, subjective, alternative form: that.

It was part of a process by which someone, somewhere, made a fortune.

- defining, non-personal, objective, alternative forms: that by; [zero] by.

The boy _ I had noticed earlier was perhaps ten or eleven.

- omitted relative pronoun , alternative forms: whom/who, that described as defining, personal, objective.

There was a sudden lull, which you sometimes get in a crowd.

- non-defining, non-personal, objective, no alternative form.

Interrogative pronouns - who, what, which - begin the so-called wh-questions that expect information specifying persons, things, places, methods, etc. So, semantically, such pronouns have an anticipatory function.They may introduce independent as well as dependent questions. They replace nouns, noun phrases or whole sentences. They are invariable for gender and number. They can also be determiners ([-PRO]).

Who asks after persons and, occasionally, after domestic animals (e.g., Who did that? addressed to a baby; Who did that? addressed to a kitten.)

When who is syntactically an object, the forms who and whom are equally used, the former in everyday speech, the latter in formal language. When whom is the object of a preposition, the preposition occurs in front of the pronoun and never at the end of the clause.

Compare: Whom are they going to blame? Of whom are you thinking? vs.Who are you thinking of? Cobb & Gardiner (l994:l56), citing Sapir too, are of opinion that the simpler who instead of the exacting form whom is preferred in natural English probably because the head of a sentence is usually occupied by the subject. So, a speaker may prefer the question Who was it you saw? to Who(m) did you see?

Whose seems to be more frequent as a determiner than as an independent possessive:

Whose ticket is this? vs. Whose is this ticket?

Who also occurs at the head of exclamatory sentences implying negation (Who would have thought it! ) or at the head of a rhetorical question (Whos afraid of walking in the dark?). In both cases, who is intoned with high pitch.

Who can be emphasized in a number of combinations: (a) with ever ( Who ever banged that door? ); the hell ( Who the hell do you believe you are? ) ; on earth ( Who on earth have I left out? ).

What has no special oblique form and no genitive. It asks after things: What is rattling inside this box? When it forms a nominal predicate, what can be used with a subject denoting a person. A description or classification is then required: What is he - is he a fireman to know how to put out fires? When what is a determiner (that is, used attributively), the NP can be personal or nonpersonal: What child would not have done the same? What price did he pay for a satisfying bar of chocolate?

Attributive what is used in exclamatory sentences and the following noun takes the indefinite article if it also takes the article in corresponding affirmative sentences: What a pity! (Cf. Its a pity ) ; What nonsense! (Cf. Its nonsense); What manners!

What! followed by a question may be used to express surprised rebuke/ remonstrance: What! Nobody setting out to find the thief?

What can be modified by ever , to denote emotions such as anger, admiration, surprise: What ever made him act so rashly? What on earth, What the hell, and What in the world can also be used to convey the speakers emotion. What can collocate with

(a) if, to introduce a clause in the declarative form, in order to ask what should be done in case of a particular difficulty arising (What if he doesnt remember?) ;

(b) for, in order to ask about the reason for something or the purpose of something (What should they return for? What were those hand-outs for?) ;

(c) about, preceding a noun phrase without a verb, in order to draw somebodys attention to something. Generally, action is expected after the question and not a particular reply (What about my pay?).

As a tag in colloquial use, what emphasizes the speakers certainty about the truth of what he says: A good-looking girl, what?

Which, with no special oblique form and no genitive, is used more restrictedly than what, though its reference can be both personal and nonpersonal. It has a selective meaning; it assumes a group; it implies a contrast between the members of the group. It frequently occurs as a determiner: He knows (on) which side his bread is buttered.

The farmer came in from the fields and his neighbour told him what had happened. Which farmer and which neighbour?

Which should not be used excessively. English speakers tend to prefer what when the meaning is not clearly selective. But with what the reference is assumed by the speaker to be nonpersonal: Theyll decide what will be dyed black (from the pile of wigs) and what brown vs. Theyll decide which girl (on the cast of actors) will be made black and which left white.

A contrast can also be felt in the option between what and which function of the number of possible answers: What way shall we go? (several routes); Which way shall we go? Right or left? (one of those two).

Previously, what ever and who ever were spelt as two separate words, whereas emphatic whichever is preferred in solid spelling but it is fairly infrequent: Whichever Smith do you mean? Jim or Joe?

Finally, we will record the idiomatic grouping in which the same pronoun occurs first as subject, next as part of a nominal predicate:

Do you happen to know whos who? (who each person is, generally from a range of notables)

Did he know whats what? (differentiating between good/important/true things and bad/ unimportant/ false ones).

Will you tell me which is which? (which of two or more entities corresponds to a given da tum).

l3.0 Indefinite pronouns can be grouped as follows:

(a) containing some: plus -thing, -body, -one

(b) containing any: plus -thing, -body, -one

(c) containing no: plus -thing, -body, -one displaying the contrast assertive-nonassertive

(d) containing every: plus -thing, -body, -one

(e) each, one, all, either, neither, both, none: indicating singularity, totality, duality, a void

set

(f) much, less, (a) few, (a) little, enough: quantifying amounts.

Excluding the semantic component, and propounding the morpho-syntactic behaviour, Quirk et al. (l99l:376) divide the whole subclass of indefinites into: compound (a,b,c,d above) and of-pronouns (the remaining e,f,g). The former are considered the least problematic because they behave like Nps of general meaning. They can be assertive, non-assertive, universal and negative. The latter are, in their turn, subdivided into the same four groups, but also, all of (e), (f), and (g), into two groups: [+COUNT] and [-COUNT], as established by the noun to follow.

A couple of general characteristics of compound indefinites can be pinned down as (a) the possibility of being reduced to the first component establishing (non)assertion as [+PRO] or as [-PRO] linguistic items, and (b) the stress they carry, thus being distinct in speech from the combinations determiner [-PRO] + independent word. For example: No one arrived [+PRO] versus No one guest (= no single guest) arrived [-PRO]. Everyone apologized [+PRO] versus Every latecomer apologized [-PRO] or Every one of the latecomers apologized ( = every single).

Of-pronouns - all of them identical in form to the determiners (an exception is none) - can be described as partitive expressions, yet some of them permit use without the of-construction, e.g. the quote from St Matthews Gospel Many are called, but few are chosen. The pronouns much, many, more, most can be labelled multal and the pronouns few, fewer, fewest, a little, less, least are paucal, as denoting great or reduced amounts and numbers, respectively.

Further down we shall make reference only to a number of indefinites that have a complex behaviour in English.

13.3 The some and any serial items are selected on the basis of the underlying meaning of the whole sentence.

Some is assertive and suggests a positive quantity. It is used in affirmative statements and questions that expect a positive answer.

Any is non-assertive and it occurs as such in negative and conditional clauses, open questions, sentences suggesting uncertainty or doubt (I dont think; unless ).

Quirk et al. (l99l:390) write in a note that the primary difference between some and any is that some is specific, though unspecified, while any is nonspecific. Compare: Some will do (some others wont) and Any will do. Halliday & Hasan (l976:158) point out the fact that in interrogative, hypothetical or negative use, the difference between singular and plural is neutralized, e.g. Im expecting some letters. Has any come? = Have any come?

An atypic use of some occurs in interrogative/interrogative-negative sentences in which it is polite to presuppose the acceptance of the speakers offer, for example Coffee! Wouldnt you like some? or What if somebody knocks at the door? , in which anybody might sound more indifferent, as if the speaker hardly cared what the answer would be.

So, in non-assertive contexts we come across assertive forms. Vice versa, in assertive contexts we may meet non-assertive forms, e.g. Bob was more than anyone else interested in their decision (= nobody could be more interested than Bob = Bob was extremely interested).

13.4 The choice between any and either is easily explained as dictated by a distinction between duality and more than two. They share the non-assertive territory and are unstressed: The gardens are already in the dark. Can you see any? I am doubtful. I dont believe it either. Any and either in an assertive context are stressed and can be glossed as it doesnt matter which/who/what . E.g. Heres money and books for you. We are grateful for either - we appreciate help, any we can get.

13.5 One is additionally versatile, when compared to other indefinites, being recorded as

(a) generic pronoun (with the forms one, ones, oneself) and, as such, it does not accept determiners or modifiers;

(b) numerical one , contrasting with the other or another ;

(c) substitute one (with the plural form ones) combining with determiners and modifiers (e.g., the best one in his generation ) . Ones cannot be used alone.

One substitutes for countables only; in the case of uncountables, when avoidance of repetition is intended, the noun is simply deleted ( She likes hot coffee better than cold).

One may be preceded or followed by adjectives: His idea has become a very influential one. He lay like one dead (though He lay like a dead man is preferred). Sometimes after comparatives, most often after superlatives, one is dispensed with. We exemplify from Cobb & Gardiner (l994:177): I had to go to school in my old boots, while my tidier ones (no deletion) were re-soled. I doubt if it is wise always to praise the younger son in the presence of the elder (deletion). The English climate is, according to pessimists, the worst in the world (deletion).

One and some are substitutes for an indefinite NP , such as in Can you give me new books to read? I need one to begin before bedtime or I need some to while my summer away.

Halliday & Hasan (l976:99) signal one as phonologically salient when it is a cardinal number, and phonologically weak when it is indefinite. Neither involves substitution, but both are elliptical; this can be brought out by reading Youve already got one in two ways, as suggested above. Jespersen (apud Dutescu-Coliban, l986:318) makes the difference between the prop-word one, which is anaphorical and either animate or inanimate, and the personal one, not referring to a word just mentioned, like in the great ones of the earth, the Holy One (God), the Evil One (the Devil). One is not a substitute form either in The ones she really loves are her godparents. Here ones means people. When one(s) is not anaphoric, and it intermediates between the substitute one and general nouns, it can be called a pro-noun (Halliday & Hasan, l976:l02), not a pronoun, because it is not a substitute form and it has no cohesive force. Two more examples: The one he needs is his lawyer. Now, my dearest ones, gather round. The two co-authors discuss the ambiguity in the statement The children seemed to enjoy the outing. The one who didnt was George. Two interpretations result from two different values of one: if George is one of the children, one is a substitute form, and if George is the teacher, one means the person who didnt and is a pro-noun, not presupposing anything. In the study of cohesion, the two values are kept apart.

13.6 The quantity word all [-PRO] prefaces both plural countables and uncountables, e.g.

All insistence is useless. All grandparents spoil the young ones. There are contexts in which all has clearly the meaning of every. Compare: Every student was asked and All the students were asked.

All as [+PRO] is not used elliptically to refer to a mass noun. Halliday & Hasan (l976:155) consider the utterance The milk couldnt be used. All was sour impossible, whereas [-PRO] all is accepted, according to the illustration all the milk was sour, or all + of+ such as in All of the milk was spilt on the floor.

All described as [+HUM] [+PRO] is used anaphorically ( Daddy, Granddad, Uncle Joe, all went on a hunting trip) or, if not [+ANA],it is modified by a restrictive relative clause ( All who have ever gone on a fishing trip have boasted of a good haul later).

In set phrases, all can provide a rich list, but in many entries it has an adverbial function. For its pronominal occurrence in set phrases, we can mention here:

all in all: All in all , the party was a success.

for all: For all they care (so far as they care), their children may wear two rings in each ear all along: I knew it all along (from the very beginning).

at all: I didnt find anything at all (of any kind).

all right ( also spelt alright in nonstandard English): It sounds all right to me.

and all: Tom, Mary and all (and the rest) joined our protest.

all together: They shouted their protest all together (all in one voice).

13.7 Each [+ PRO] and every [-PRO], having almost the same meaning, differ in the subject-verb agreement. The former as a subject agrees with the verb in the singular and so does the latter - that is, every as a determiner - but this time the sentence continues with plural forms of possessives or verbs : Every wish comes true at some point in time, dont they? Another difference is that each fits the situational context of the total number of two and more than two; every(one/body) fits the context of a total number exceeding two.

The interpretation of distribution - present in each and every - is stronger in each than in every. The former focuses attention on the individual and thus disperses the unity. The latter tends to put together items into a whole.

13.8 Neither, nobody, no one, none, nothing make negative statements as [+PRO]. Only the first item on the list of negatives is frequently used as [-PRO]. If [+PRO], neither must be followed by of + a plural form (noun, pronoun) or it opens the statement on its own if the style is fairly formal: Neither was suffering pain. I was not what I pretended and neither were they.

There is no difference in meaning between nobody, none and no one (also with the hyphenated form no-one). They are glossed as not a single person or not a single member of a particular group. The group is always of three or more. In syntax, there are two differences: (l) of is not used after no one and nobody, but it is frequently the beginning of a qualifying expression for none (* No-one of the children; None of the children felt challenged); (2) the verb is always in the singular with no-one or nobody, and either a singular form or a plural form with none (None of them was / were impressed). When contrasting no one and nobody, the general tendency is to feel the former as referring to a limited group, and the latter as suitable when there is no concept of limitation. Compare: No one had an answer to that and silence fell in the room. Nobody has definite answers to questions about after-life. Bantas et al. (l993:107) explain this difference as unlimited range of possibilities (no one and nobody) and limited range of possibilities (none).

Nothing is glossed as not a single thing. Like the other negatives, it excludes any other negative item within the statement and the verb after it is in the singular. Idiomatic patterning can be found in nothing but meaning only (He did nothing but complain) and nothing of equivalent with none of preceding uncountables (There is no optimism in the book, nothing of the lightness of tone in his early life, none of the humour, charm and good grace that could be sensed before this last volume).