Johanna:
"Personal pronoun" seems to me a reasonably accurate term. Consider the
sentence "The queen of England admired the king of Spain's horse, but she
disliked his saddle." In this sentence, "the queen of England" is a noun
phrase, and "she" is the corresponding pronoun. Likewise, "the king of
Spain's" is a possessive noun phrase, and "his" is the corresponding
possessive pronoun. If one doesn't object to the term "possessive noun
phrase," then one shouldn't object to "possessive pronoun." Both possessive
noun phrases and possessive pronouns act as determiners.
Of course, one could object to the term "pronoun" itself, since pronouns
replace entire noun phrases, not just simple nouns. In a sentence like "All
chubby chiropractors from Greenland with bad haircuts find that they ...,"
the referent for "they" is not "chiropractors" but the entire NP "All chubby
... bad haircuts." I suppose "pro-NP" would be the more accurate term, but
"pronoun" is what we are stuck with.
Dick Veit
_______________________________
-----Original Message-----
From: Assembly for the Teaching of English Grammar on behalf of Johanna
Rubba
Sent: Sun 10/7/2007 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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