Grammatical characteristics of relative adjectives.

1. Relative adjectives have no degrees of comparison.

2. They do not form adverbs with the suffix -ly. But if they develop a figurative meaning, adverbs can be formed.

wooden — 1) made of wood; 2) not showing enough natural expres­sion, emotion or movement.

She speaks her lines rather woodenly.

3. They have certain typical suffixes, such as -en, -an, -ist, -ic, -ical: wooden, Italian, socialist, synthetic, analytical.

4. Relative adjectives are chiefly used as attributes.

... she was a fair example of the middle American class... (Dreiser) (ATTRIBUTE)

She had noticed a pretty wooden chain upon Gretel's neck. (Dodge) (ATTRIBUTE)

"Certainly," answered Hilda, looking kindly into the two earnest faces, and wishing from her heart that she had not spent so much of her monthly allowance for lace and finery. (Dodge) (ATTRIBUTE)

The morning was windy and sharp. (Saxton) (PREDICATIVE)

Substantivized adjectives.

Substantivized adjectives have acquired some or all of the charac­teristics of the noun, but their adjectival origin is still generally felt.

Substantivized adjectives are divided into wholly substantivized and partially substantivized adjectives.

Wholly substantivized adjectives have all the characteristics of nouns, namely the plural form, the genitive case; they are associated with articles, i. e. they have become nouns: a native, the natives, a na­tive's hut.

Some wholly substantivized adjectives have only the plural form: eatables, valuables, ancients, sweets, greens.

Partially substantivized adjectives acquire only some of the cha­racteristics of the noun; they are used with the definite article. Partially substantivized adjectives denote a whole class: the rich, the poor; the unemployed. They may also denote abstract notions: the good, the evil, the beautiful, the singular, the plural, the future, the present, the past.

Substantivized adjectives denoting nationalities fall under wholly and partially substantivized adjectives.

Wholly substantivized adjectives are: a Russian — Russians, a Ger­man — Germans.

Partially substantivized adjectives are: the English, the French, the Chinese.

 

Chapter IV

THE PRONOUN

§ 1. The pronoun is a part of speech which points out objects and their qualities without naming them.

Classification of pronouns.

Pronouns fall under the following groups:

1. personal pronouns: I, he, she, it, we, you, they

2. possessive pronouns: my, his, her, its, our, your, their; mine, his, hers, ours, yours, theirs.

3. reflexive pronouns: myself, himself, herself, itself, ourselves, yourself (yourselves), themselves.

4. reciprocal pronouns: each other, one another.

5. demonstrative pronouns: this (these), that (those), such, (the) same.

6. interrogative pronouns: who, whose, what, which.

7. relative pronouns: who, whose, which, that, as.

8. conjunctive pronouns: who, whose, which, what.

9. defining pronouns: each, every, everybody, everyone, everything, all, either, both, other, another.

10. indefinite pronouns: some, any, somebody, anybody, something, anything, someone, anyone, one.

11. negative pronouns: no, none, neither, nobody, no one, nothing.

 

There is no uniformity of morphological and syntactical charac­teristics in the groups of pronouns. Some pronouns have the grammati­cal categories of person, gender, case, and number. The categories of Person and gender (in the third person singular) exist only in personal and possessive pronouns.

Pronouns as well as nouns have two cases but whereas some pro­nouns (e. g. personal pronouns and the relative and interrogative who) have the nominative (another term is 'subjective') and objective cases, others (e. g. indefinite pronouns such as somebody, reciprocal pronouns such as one another, negative pronouns such as nobody) have the com­mon and genitive cases.

The category of number is found in demonstrative pronouns (this and that) and the defining pronoun other.

Many pronouns are characterised by double syntactical use (they may be used as subject, predicative, object, and at the same time as attribute). Here belong demonstrative pronouns, possessive pronouns, etc.

Personal pronouns.

1. The personal pronouns are: I, he, she, it, we, you, they. The personal pronouns have the grammatical categories of person, case, number and (in the third person singular) gender.

The personal pronouns have two cases: the nominative case and the objective case.

The nominative case: I, he, she, it, we, you, they.¹

The objective case: me, him, her, it, us, you, them.²

The objective case of the pronouns I, he, she, we is expressed by suppletive forms.

In colloquial speech me, not I is commonly used as a predicative: Who is there? — It is me.

The personal pronouns have two numbers, singular (I, he, she, it) and plural (we, they).

The second-person pronoun you is both singular and plural.

The pronouns of the third person he, she, it distinguish gender. Male beings {man, father, uncle, boy, etc.) are referred to as he; female beings {woman, mother, aunt, girl, etc.) are referred to as she; inanimate things {house, tree, cap, etc.) are referred to as it.³

Her husband asked a few questions and sat down to read the

evening paper. He was a silent man... (Dreiser)

And then he turned and saw the girl... She was a pale, ethereal

creature, with wide, spiritual eyes and a wealth of golden hair. (London)

He did not know what to do with his cap, and was stuffing it into his coat pocket... (London)

 

 

1.The archaic pronoun of the second person singular is thou.

2.The objective case of thou is thee.

3.In literary style the general principle is to associate with the pronoun he words indicating strong forces, violent passions, violent actions, big heavenly bodies (wind, fear, love, anger; despair, sun); and to associate with the pronoun she gentler forces, gentler feelings, smaller heavenly bodies (hope, mercy, justice, modesty, moon).

 

As some nouns denote animate beings of either sex, masculine or feminine {friend, teacher; servant, cousin etc.), personal pronouns are often used to specify them:

"Tell your servant that he must not use such words to Hendrike, Mr. Allan," Stella said to me. (Haggard)

2. Personal pronouns may have different functions in the sentence, those of subject, object, predicative:

I was not free to resume the interrupted chain of my reflections till bed-time... (Ch. Bronte) (SUBJECT)

He arranged to meet her at the 96th Street station... (Wilson) (OBJECT)

"Who's there?" "It's me." "Who's me?" "George Jackson, sir." (Twain) (PREDICATIVE)

But I think that was him I spoke to. (Cronin) (PREDICATIVE)

Possessive pronouns.

Possessive pronouns have the same distinctions of person, number, and gender as personal pronouns.

Possessive pronouns have two forms, namely the dependent (or conjoint) form and the independent (or absolute) form.