A Student's Introduction to English Grammar

102 Chapter 5 Nouns and noun phrases

The examples of deixis given above included not only pronouns but also

other kinds of expression (this country, here, now), and it is likewise not only

pronouns that are used anaphorically. In I warned Jack about that, but the fo ol

wouldn 't listen, for example, the N P the fo ol is anaphorically related to the

antecedent Jack.

8.2 Personal pronouns

The prototypical members of the set of personal pronouns are as follows:

[5 1 ]

1ST PERSON

2ND PERSON

3 RD PERSON

SINGULAR

1

you

he, she, it

PLURAL

we

you

they

The term 'personal' should not be thought to imply that these pronouns are used to

refer to persons: obviously, this doesn't apply to almost all cases of it and many of

they. This subclass is called 'personal' because it is the one to which the grammati­

cal distinction of person applies.

The category of person

• 1st person indicates reference to the speaker. We follow the widespread practice
  in linguistics of using this term to cover the writer of written language as well as
  the speaker of spoken language.


• 2nd person usually indicates reference to the addressee(s) -not everyone who
  hears (or reads) the utterance, but the person or persons addressed by the speaker.


• 3rd person is the default term in the system, giving no indication that the speaker
  or the addressee is included, and thus typically excluding them. Notice that ALL
  NPs headed by a common or proper noun or a pronoun other than 1, we, or you
  are 3rd person.

The terms' 1st', '2nd' and '3rd' reflect a hierarchical ordering. We can see this
clearly by looking at how we select plural pronouns:

• We first ask whether the set of people being referred to includes the speaker(s).^3
  If so, the 1 st person plural we is the pronoun to use. That might include the
  addressee(s) too (Let's leave now, so we don 't have to rush) or it might not (We're
  better off without you).


• Next, ifthe set being referred to does not include the speaker(s), we ask whether
  it includes the addressee(s). If so, then the 2nd person you is the right pronoun.
  That might include someone other than the addressee(s) (When your husband

3 Note that there may be more than one speaker: in writing this arises with joint letters, jointly authored

works, etc., in speech in communal prayer, chants, etc.