In linguistics and grammar, a pronoun is a word or form that substitutes for a noun or noun phrase. It is a particular case of a pro-form. Pronouns have traditionally been regarded as one of the parts of speech, although many modern theorists would not regard them as a single distinct word class, because of the variety of functions performed by words which are classed as pronouns. Common types include the personal pronouns, relative pronouns, interrogative pronouns, demonstrative pronouns and indefinite pronouns. The use of pronouns often involves anaphora, where the meaning of the pronoun is dependent on another referential element. This applies particularly to the (third-person) personal pronouns. The referent of the pronoun is often the same as that of a preceding (or sometimes following) noun phrase, called the antecedent of the pronoun. For example, in the sentence That poor man looks as if he needs a new coat, the antecedent of the pronoun he is the noun phrase that poor man. (Pronouns used without antecedents are sometimes called unprecursed pronouns.) Another type of antecedent is that found with relative pronouns, as in the woman who looked at you, where the woman is the antecedent of the relative pronoun who. Pronouns and determiners are closely related, and some linguists think pronouns are actually determiners without a noun or a noun phrase.[1] The following chart shows their relationships in English. Pronouns have been classified as one of the parts of speech since at least the 2nd century BC when they were included in the Greek treatise Art of Grammar. Objections to this approach have appeared among grammatical theories in the 20th century. Their grammatical heterogeneity, many-sided pronouns were underlined, which were classified as follows:[clarification needed] "indicative words" (Karl Brugmann, Karl Buhler, Uriel Weinreich); "indexes" or "indicators" (Charles Sanders Peirce, William Edward Collinson); "words with changeable signification" (Adolf Noreen); "moveable identifiers" (Otto Jespersen, Roman Jakobson); "updating" or "means of transferring from language to speech" (Charles Bally, Emile Benveniste); "words of subjective-objective lexical meaning" (Alexey Peshkovsky); "word remnants" or "substitutes" (Lev Shcherba, Leonard Bloomfield, Zellig Harris); "determiners whose NP complements have been deleted" (Paul Postal);[1] "represents" (Ferdinand Brunot); "survivals of a special part of speech" (Viktor Vinogradov), A pronominal is a phrase that acts as a pronoun. For example, in I want that kind, the phrase that kind stands for a noun phrase that can be deduced from context, and may thus be called a pronominal.
