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The English pronouns form a relatively small category of words in Modern English whose primary semantic function is that of a pro-form for a noun phrase. [1] Traditional grammars consider them to be a distinct part of speech, while most modern grammars see them as a subcategory of noun, contrasting with common and proper nouns.
It is relatively common for a language to distinguish between demonstrative determiners or demonstrative adjectives (sometimes also called determinative demonstratives, adjectival demonstratives or adjectival demonstrative pronouns) and demonstrative pronouns (sometimes called independent demonstratives, substantival demonstratives, independent ...
Adjective phrases containing complements after the adjective cannot normally be used as attributive adjectives before a noun. Sometimes they are used attributively after the noun , as in a woman proud of being a midwife (where they may be converted into relative clauses: a woman who is proud of being a midwife ), but it is wrong to say * a ...
The main similarity between adjectives and determiners is that they can both appear immediately before nouns (e.g., many/happy people). The key difference between adjectives and determiners in English is that adjectives cannot function as determinatives.
Adjectives and the demonstrative and interrogative pronouns all have instrumental forms. Adverbs are commonly formed in Old English by adding -e to the adjective, which is the adjective's instrumental case. [6]
Although English pronouns can have subject and object forms (he/him, she/her), nouns show only a singular/plural and a possessive/non-possessive distinction (e.g. chair, chairs, chair's, chairs'); there is no manifest difference in the form of chair between "The chair is here." (subject) and "I own the chair."
Determiners are distinguished from pronouns by the presence of nouns. [6] Each went his own way. (Each is used as a pronoun, without an accompanying noun.) Each man went his own way. (Each is used as a determiner, accompanying the noun man.) Plural personal pronouns can act as determiners in certain constructions. [7] We linguists aren’t stupid.
The English personal pronouns are a subset of English pronouns taking various forms according to number, person, case and grammatical gender. Modern English has very little inflection of nouns or adjectives, to the point where some authors describe it as an analytic language, but the Modern English system of personal pronouns has preserved some of the inflectional complexity of Old English and ...