English grammar - Roger Berry 2012
B2.3 Problems with personal pronouns
B2 Pronouns
Section B Development
The table above is the situation that is usually presented to teachers and learners of English. However, there are problems with all four of the categories mentioned above.
Person
Person is a word you already know, but here it is being used in a different, technical sense. It means the way personal pronouns refer to different participants in the speech/ writing situation, in other words, in the act of communication:
□ the first person refers to the speaker or writer
□ the second person refers to the listener(s) or reader(s) (sometimes called ’addressee(s)’)
□ the third person refers to all other people and things outside the act of communication.
There are some problems here. For one thing it, by definition, is not a ’personal’ pronoun. But more importantly, there is a huge difference between the third person and the other two. The reference of the first and second person pronouns can only be identified by specific knowledge of each act of communication; they are ’deictic’, just like the words here and there, now and then, as in this imagined phone conversation:
Who’s that?
It’s me.
No, it’s not - I’m me. You’re you. So where are you, you?
I’m here.
No, you’re not. I’m here. You’re there.
In contrast, third person pronouns can function as a cohesive device, helping to hold a text together (see B11). It is here that we find the traditional idea of pronouns replacing noun phrases.
Is that today’s paper? Can I borrow it?
But as we saw above, this idea of replacement is not always the case, even for third person pronouns.
One other third person pronoun should be added here: one (and ones), which can act both as a substitute for a head noun:
Which sweet do you want? - I’ll take the red one.
and for an indefinite noun phrase:
I need a new car. - Where are you going to find the money for one?
Number and gender
Even though it sounds simple, number is also a problematic category for pronouns. The second person in English has no distinction between singular and plural (it is said to be ’neutralised’), and the third person has the additional distinction of gender, but only in the singular. As for the first person, strictly speaking we is not the plural of I, because it is very difficult, if not impossible, to have two or more first persons (though two examples would be a document signed by many people beginning We the undersigned ..., or twins speaking simultaneously). Usually we means ’I and you’ or ’I and he/she/they’. The former is called ’inclusive’ we because it includes the listener (What shall we do tonight?) and the latter ’exclusive’ we (Were going home; what about you?). Let’s can only be interpreted as inclusive.
There is another situation where the singular/plural distinction is problematic, where the paradigm is not so neat or accurate, as the next activity shows.
Activity B2.1
Fill in the gap with a suitable pronoun; use your intuitions. Anyone can see that, can’t ...?
Case
Most of the personal pronouns have two forms, or ’cases’, depending on the role they play in a sentence. The subjective typically occurs as the subject, while the objective typically occurs as the object, hence their names (see A8 for more on these roles):
I like it. They hate us.
The distinction is neutralised for you and it.
There are a number of issues concerning the choice of subjective or objective. Typically the objective is also used for predicatives (e.g. after the verb be - see A8): It is me. Some people, however, believe the subjective should be used: It is I, though there is no historical reason for this. The objective tends to be used instead of the subjective when the pronoun is first in a coordinated phrase, even though it is the subject:
Me and Darren are having a party tomorrow.
This sounds informal (and wrong to some people) compared with
Darren and I are having a party tomorrow.
Related forms
A number of related forms are sometimes included with the personal pronouns because they seem to follow the same pattern. These are
□ possessive pronouns: mine, yours, his, hers, ours, theirs
Mine is red.
Its does not exist as a pronoun: ’Is this its?’
The double genitive that we saw with nouns is also common with possessive pronouns: a friend of mine (rather than ’a friend of me’)
□ possessive determiners: my, your, his, her, its, our, their (see A3)
My car is red.
The possessive pronouns and determiners correspond to the two uses of the genitive:
Will’s is red. / Mine is red.
Will’s car is red. / My car is red.
□ reflexive pronouns, where the subject and object are the same: myself, yourself, himself, herself, ourselves, yourselves, themselves
I hurt myself.
Activity B2.2
Fill in the gap with a suitable pronoun.
If anyone doesn’t want to surrender, they could shoot ... .
NON-STANDARD FORMS
There are several non-standard personal pronouns that you may come across in representations of dialect or historical speech. Here are a few:
a) old and middle English distinguished singular and plural for the second person. You etc., was only plural, while the singular and related forms in writing were: thou (subjective), thee (objective), thy (possessive determiner), thine (possessive pronoun), thyself (reflexive). A descendant of this, written tha, can be heard in the Yorkshire dialect.
b) a number of dialects of English have second person plural forms: yiz (Irish), youse (Liverpool), y’all (southern American). Another, you guys, originally American, is now common in standard British English as well and could be regarded as an informal plural spoken alternative to you.
c) several dialects have hisself as an alternative to himself. Although it is regarded as ungrammatical, it is quite logical, being formed from the possessive rather than the objective form, like myself and yourself.
Generic uses
The biggest problem with the traditional paradigm is that it also ignores a whole range of uses of the personal pronouns to describe people in general (i.e. generic reference as opposed to specific - see B3 for more on this). Here are some examples with explanations:
WE: We now enjoy a better standard of living.
This use is very typical of politicians who are trying to include everybody (not just their listeners) in their field of reference.
YOU: It’s awful when you can’t remember someone’s name.
This is sometimes said to be an informal alternative to one (see below), but in fact it is very common and is found in quite formal as well as informal circumstances. By using it speakers try to involve the listener in the generalisation they are making.
THEY: They say it’s going to rain tonight.
It doesn’t make any difference; they’ll still get you.
Here they is not referring to or replacing any previously-mentioned noun phrase. It is referring vaguely to people with whom the speaker does not identify - people in positions of knowledge (e.g. the weather forecasters) or power (e.g. the government).
ONE: One tries one’s hardest.
This is very formal.