ENGL 672 Pronouns/proforms study guide GQ Ch. 6, Schachter & Shopen 2.

March 12, 2012

Major topics in GQ Ch. 6 (see also GQ Ch. 12: 12.3-12.13) on English pronouns. Situate and elaborate English situation with crosslinguistic information in Schachter & Shopen 2.1 Classes of pronouns: central, relative, interrogative, demonstrative, indefinite (summarized 6.1) Central pronouns: case, person, gender, number, first person plural, generic reference of personal pronouns, it, reflexives, possessives Pronouns without a person contrast: relative, interrogative, demonstrative, indefinite (universal, partitive) =========================================
OUTLINE, NOTES, AND PRACTICE EXERCISES

to help you organize and prioritize information in the readings on pronouns (answers to exercises provided; best to work the exercises before looking at the answers) Identify the constituent the proform in each substitutes for.1 a. b. c. d. e. Pat is in London and Sid is there too. Lee arrived on Tuesday and Rob arrived then too. She hoped that theyd clean the house carefully before she got home, but they didnt do so. The senator finished her dinner and she went straight to bed. If hes a criminal, its his parents who have made him so.

1.

2.

Central pronouns: GQ: 6.2 (PERSON, NUMBER, GENDER CASE coded for some central pronouns; understand how these grammatical categories are specified/coded in English, i.e. what PERSON/CASE/GENDER/NUMBER distinctions are made in English pronouns?) a.
PERSONAL PRONOUNS : S&S: 24-26 CASE: I/me, she/her [subjective/objective] PERSON: I/you/she, etc. [contrast between 1, 2, 3] GENDER: personal and nonpersonal, e.g. he/she v.

it and masculine and feminine,

3.

e.g. she/he. NUMBER: I/we

Case: subjective, objective (GQ 6.7: subject territory and object territory) a. prescriptive issue in Standard English: misuse of pronoun case It was she who came. (standard) The only person to hear the news was me. (standard=I) It was ________(she/her) that Pat criticized.

4.

It (GQ 6.9) a. refers to a variety of Ns, NPs, whole clauses or sentences

a. adverbial, b. adverbial, c. predication, d. NP or subject, e. NP or subject complement.

b. c.

Dummy/prop it: What time is it? Is it raining? ambient it (Bolinger 1977): Nonanaphoric is uses often make reference to the immediate situation: weather, time, circumstance, whatever is obvious by the nature of reality. Bolinger suggests that its a mistake to confuse no meaning with generality of meaning.

5.

It reference: What is it referring to (the referent) in each of the following?2 a. b. c. d. She made some soup and gave it to the children. A: Who said I was crazy? B: I said it. Its getting dark. Parliaments answer to all problems is to establish a Royal Commission whose findings it can then ignore.

6.

First person plural: inclusive, exclusive a. Kuri (Austronesian)

DUAL PLURAL

incl. excl. b. 7. 8. 9.

!ea! !ea! -wai

!ullia !u!ullia

GQ 6.10: different uses of we, e.g. editorial we

Limited modification of pronouns [relative to other nominals] (GQ 6.11): some adjectives, appositives, PPs, universal pronouns, relative clauses. Generic reference of personal pronouns: generic 3s, we, you, they, one (formal) Reflexive pronouns: used when two NPs coreferential (refer to the same thing). (GQ: 6.13, S&S: 26-28) a. b. c. d. They helped themselves. She allowed herself a rest. He is not himself today. The deli pays for itself. (subject & direct object coreferential) (subject & indirect object coreferential) (subject & subject complement coreferential) (subject & prepositional complement)

emphatic use of reflexive form in English; not necessarily the same form used for both functions (reflexive, emphatic) in other languages.

10.

Possessive pronouns (GQ 6.16): GQ make a distinction between determiner and independent function (see Table 6.2). Other treatments only call the independent function a pronoun and classify the determiner function simply as a determiner. You should be able to distinguish these two functions.

Answers may vary. a. noncount noun (substance), b. clause, c. ambient it, d. collective N (Parliament).

11. 12.

Reciprocal pronouns (S&S: 28-29) Relative pronouns (GQ: 6.17, S&S: 30): Review from GenLing if necessary. More on relative clauses at the end of the term. a. b. gender and case contrasts relative pronouns have a double function: refer to antecedent, and function as a clause element in the relative clause, e.g. The book that you ordered last month arrived. Here the relative pronoun that both refers back to the antecedent (the head noun, the book) and also functions as a clause element in the relative clause (that is the subject of the relative clause that you ordered last month). zero relative pronoun in English: cant have zero relative pronoun in subject function, e.g. *I saw the woman works at the Naro [I saw the woman who works at the Naro.]

c. 13.

What is the function of the relative pronoun in the relative clause (S, Od, Oi, C, A, etc.)?3 a. b. c. d. The boy that we met was Freddie. She arrived the day that I was ill (on). I dont like the person that my son has become. The person who spoke to him told him the wrong thing.

14. 15. 16. 17.

Interrogative pronouns (GQ: 6.18, S&S: 33-34) Demonstrative pronouns (GQ: 6.19, S&S: 29) Indefinite pronouns (GQ: beginning 6.21, S&S: 29-30) What kind of pronoun (based on GQ classification)? (Central (C: what kind?), Relative (R), Interrogative (I), Demonstrative (D), Universal (U), Partitive (P: assertive or nonassertive?)4 a. b. c. d. e. Pat told us ( Everyone ( This ( Which ( Anyone ( ) all about himself ( ). ) of the shrimp salad. ) of the twins. )?

) at the barbeque had some ( ) of the umbrellas is yours ( ) who (

) will appeal to either (

) cant bluff shouldnt play poker.

3 4

a. Od, b. A, c. Cs, d. S. a. C-personal, C-reflexive, b. U, P-assertive, c. D, P-nonassertive, d. I, C-possessive, e. P-nonassertive, r.