Syntactic Theory

Pronouns

Pronouns are a very heterogeneous group. The unifying property of pronouns is that they are function words whose interpretation relies on that of the context (linguistic or situational). Traditionally pronoun is used for those words that show a distribution similar to that of an NP and whose interpretation is usually linked to that of an NP in the discourse. However, there are so-called pro-forms for other syntactic categories as well.

On this page, we will consider all pro-forms and specify the respective syntactic category, such as Pro-NP form, Pro-Det form, ...

• Pro-NP forms:
  Can be used in all positions in which an NP can occur.
  • personal pronouns: I/me, you/you, she/her, he/him, it, we/us, you/you, they/them
  • indefinite pronouns: everyone, someone, anyone

• Pro-N' form:
  • one
  • I met [NP: the [N': student of linguistics] with long hair]
    and you met [NP: the [N': one (*of physics)] with short hair].

• Pro-VP forms:
  • so does

• possessive determiner:
  • has the same distribution as the definite determiner the.
  • my, your, her, his, its, our, your, their

• possessive pronoun:
  • has the same distribution as an NP, but denotes an entity together with a possessive relation, i.e. mine refers to an entity that belongs to the speaker.
  • mine, yours, his, hers, its, ours, yours, theirs

• reflexive pronoun:
  • has the distribution of an NP. There are further distributional constraints imposed on reflexives that are studied within Binding Theory.
  • ends in -self/selves: myself, yourself, herself, himself, itself, ourselves, yourselves, themselves

• reciprocal pronoun:
  • has the distribution of an NP and further distributional properties which are roughly the same as those for reflexive pronouns.
  • there are only: each other, one another

• relative pronoun:
  • stand at the beginning of a relative clause, i.e. in the environment the N (P) __ NP V (the man who Pat called, the book about which we spoke.)
  • relative pronouns come as pro-forms of different syntactic categories:
    • relative pro-NP forms:
      • have the distribution of an NP
      • who, whom, which, that
    • relative determiners:
      • have the distribution of Det
      • whose
    • relative adverbs:
      • have the distribution of an AdvP
      • when, where

• interrogative pronoun:
  • stand at the beginning of a wh-question, i.e. in the environment (P)__ Aux ...?
  • interrogative pronouns come as pro-forms of different syntactic categories:
    • interrogative pro-NP forms:
      • have the distribution of an NP
      • who, whom, what
    • interrogative determiners:
      • have the distribution of Det
      • which, whose
    • interrogative adverbs:
      • have the distribution of an AdvP
      • when, where, why, how

• Pro-S form:
  • so
    Chris said [that Pat will leave the party before midnight] but I don't really think so.
  • it
    Chris said [that Pat will leave the party before midnight] but I don't really believe it.

• Proform for predicative categories:
  • so
    Pat isn't really a fool/lazy, he just seems so

Related exercise:

• Identify pronouns

Categories: Glossary