Johanna,
At the risk of a reductio ad absurdum, here is a table of Latin personal pronoun forms:
Person
Number Case 1 2 3masc 3fem 3neut
Singular I you (žu) he she it
Nominative ego tu is ea id
Genitive mei tui eius eius eius
Dative mihi tibi ei ei ei
Accusative me te eum eam id
Ablative me te eo ea eo
Plural we you they they they
Nominative nos vos ei eae ea
Genitive nostri vestri eorum earum eorum
Dative nobis vobis eis eis eis
Accusative nos vos eos eas ea
Ablative nobis vobis eis eis eis
The cases represent five different sets of functions. Would you then have five different lexical categories? Why would you have two for English? Or is the problem that we don't want words to be members of two different lexical categories? Genitive pronouns have reference; they're just not indexical. Anaphorically they behave like pronouns, but syntactically they don't. I don't have a problem saying that they are members of both the pronoun and the determiner classes.
Or have I missed your point?
Herb
-----Original Message-----
From: Assembly for the Teaching of English Grammar [mailto:[log in to unmask]] On Behalf Of Johanna Rubba
Sent: Sunday, October 07, 2007 4:52 PM
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: Re: Part of speech query
I'm afraid I do find it objectionable to use the term "pronoun" for
items that do not, in fact, function as such. It's another way that
traditional grammar can cause confusion by mushing distinctions (as
is done with form and function for adjectives) or by giving
incomplete or inaccurate descriptions (e.g., that a pronoun stands in
for a noun, not a noun phrase, or that simple present tense means
actual present time for all verbs, not just state verbs).
Now, language itself is pretty good at mushing distinctions, but we
analysts of language can at least aim for clean-cut terminology use.
I don't think much can be done about the use of "possessive pronoun"
for the items in question, but ... if I were queen of the world ...
Dr. Johanna Rubba, Ph. D.
Associate Professor, Linguistics
Linguistics Minor Advisor
English Dept.
Cal Poly State University San Luis Obispo
San Luis Obispo, CA 93407
Ofc. tel. : 805-756-2184
Dept. tel.: 805-756-2596
Dept. fax: 805-756-6374
E-mail: [log in to unmask]
URL: cla.calpoly.edu/~jrubba
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