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 To join or leave this LISTSERV list, please visit the list's web interface at: http://listserv.muohio.edu/archives/ateg.html and select "Join or leave the list" Visit ATEG's web site at http://ateg.org/ To join or leave this LISTSERV list, please visit the list's web interface at: http://listserv.muohio.edu/archives/ateg.html and select "Join or leave the list" Visit ATEG's web site at http://ateg.org/