PRONOUNS

Classification of pronouns:

• central pronouns: personal (we, us), reflexive (ourselves), possessive (our, yours)

• relative pronouns, e.g.: which, that,

• interrogative pronouns, e.g.: Who?, What?,

• demonstrative pronouns, e.g.: this, these,

• indefinite pronouns:

• positive: universal (both, each), assertive (some, several), nonassertive (any, nobody)

• negative, e.g.: any, neither.

• archaic pronouns (thou, thee, thy)

Generic reference: pronouns (we, you, they) are used generally to represent people

Reflexive pronouns: agree with noun in a number, gender and person (Mikey – himself)

Pronouns without a person contrast:

• relative pronouns, e.g.: The person that I admire most.../The man whose beard was white...,

• interrogative pronouns (Who?, Whom?, Whose?, What?),

• demonstrative pronouns (this, these, that, those),

• indefinite pronouns (-body, -thing, e.g.: everybody/everyone, nobody/noone - despite their plural meaning they take singular verbs, e.g.: [everybody is pleased], each, both).

Partitive indefinite pronouns:

• quantifiers, e.g.: some chocolate, a few people,

• in expressions with of, e.g.: one of, each of, some of, most of, none of

• numerals (one, two, etc.).

ADJECTIVES

• semantically, adjectives denote properties of things, people, places, properties eg. colour

• syntactitly, they have III properties,

• I FUNCTION: attributive function (an old book), predicative function (the book is old)

• II GRADE: plain - worse - the worst,

• III MODIFICATION: usually by adverbs: absolutely stunning.

Gradable adjectives: bad - worse - the worst.

Non-gradable adjectives: my index finger, a medical problem, phonetic symbols.

Some adjectives may be both: in the public interest/a very public quarrel.

The structure of Adjective Phrases (APs):

1) Adjective as a head 2) PPs as complements 3) AdvP, PPs, NPs as modifiers

ADVERBS

• Adverbs as modifiers of adjectives and other adverbs

• Comparative & superlative: are formed by the means of more & most

• Overlap between adjectives and adverbs: there is no difference between the adverb and adjective in terms of form; however, there is sometimes a difference in meaning

• the suffix -ly does not always identify the adverb