Grammatical meaning.

Pronoun

Adjectivization of nouns.

Substantivization of adj-s.

Under certain circumstances, adj-s can be substantivized, i.e. become nouns. This phenomenon is found in many languages (вчена людина – вчений). Here arises two questions: 1) what criteria should be applied to find out if an adj. is substantivized or not? 2) is a substantivized adj. a noun, or is it not?

To answer these questions we should recollect the characteristic features of nouns in ME and see if a substantivized adj. has acquired them or not. These features are:

1. ability to form plural;

2. ability to have a form in -‘s if a living being is denoted;

3. ability to be modified by an adj.;

4. performing the function of subject or object in a sentence.

Thus, for instance, the words native and relative possess all those peculiarities (Natives of Australia, a young native; my relatives, a close relative etc). There is therefore every reason to assert that native and relative are nouns when so used, and we need not call them substantivized adj. That is the answer for the second question.

But let’s take the word rich. It is substantivized in the title of a novel by C. Snow “The Conscience of the Rich”. It is differs from the words native and relative in some important points:

1. it does not form a plural;

2. it can not be used in the singular and with the indefinite article;

3. it has no possessive form.

As does not possess all the characteristics of nouns but merely some of them, it will be right to say that it is only partly substantivized and stands in such contexts somewhere between an adj. and a noun.

In ME a noun may stand before another noun and modify it (stone wall, speech sound, peace talks, etc). The question is whether the first component of such phrases is a noun or whether it has been adjectivized, i.e. become an adjective. Another question concerning such formations (stone wall) is whether they are phrases or compound nouns.

H. Sweet has defended the view that the first element of such phrases as stone wall is a noun. O. Jespersen thinks that it is an adj. or at least approaches the adjective state. E. Shubin states that this element is neither a noun nor an adj. but a separate part of speech, viz. an attributive noun. The variety of opinions on the subject shows that the problem is one of considerable difficulty and no perfectly objective result can be obtained in trying to determine what part of speech the first element in such phrases is.

1. Grammatical meaning.

2.Classification of pronouns.

3. Grammatical categories.

Pronouns are characterized by an extremely generalizing meaning: they point out objects, entities, abstract notions and their qualities without naming them. This generalizing part of speech is actualized contextually, and is deprived of any meaning outside a particular context. In other words, pronouns never name an object or its quality, pronouns only point them out and interpretations of this object or its quality depend entirely on a situation.

Pronouns may be regarded as a specific linguistic unit, different from all other lexical words. That's why some scholars believe that pronoun is opposed to the rest of lexical words. Others, on the contrary, do not recognize pronouns as a separate part of speech, since there are no specific pronominal syntactic functions as well as grammatical categories peculiar to pronouns alone.

Recognizing pronouns as a part of speech, it is necessary to emphasize that their main function is deixix. Pronouns take part in nomination only indirectly, pointing out a certain thing, person, quality, named before, and in doing so pronouns do not convey any new information. It is this deictic meaning that gives the ground to unite pronominal groups, diverse morphologically and syntactically, into a separate part of speech.

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