Personal pronoun

“ The relative is not varied on account of gender, person, or number, like a personal pronoun. When we use a personal pronoun, in speaking of a man, we say he, and of a woman, she; in speaking of one person or thing, we use a singular pronoun, of more than one, a plural, and so on ”

“ If I am tempted to use the personal pronoun more frequently than necessary I shall deflect and command my thoughts, to wander among more agreeable persons. Having lived so long within the confines of my kindly bestowed halo I have become fully aware of my limitations. ”

“ In the sentence, the personal pronoun, thy, is once, and the personal pronoun, thou, is five times, applied to the Adam whom God addressed. “In the sweat of thy face, shalt thou eat bread, till thou return unto the ground; for out of it wast thou taken: for dust thou art, and unto dust shalt thou return.” When we address our fellowmen by the different personal pronouns of our language, what do we address? The conscious, intelligent, responsible man, that which sees, feels, hears, thinks, acts, and is morally accountable. ”

“ In such a phrase there is always a substantive, and if this is changed to a personal pronoun we find that it is in the objective case; for example, “A writer is so like a [Pg 155] lover.”—Holmes. Substituting a pronoun for lover we find that usage calls for the objective form him. Does this prove that like is a preposition and him its object? ”

“ Ours is, I believe, the only language that has shown so much sense of the worth of the individual (to himself) as to erect the first personal pronoun into a kind of votive column to the dignity of human nature. ”

“ Thus, if we are speaking of books, and say [,] 'Mine are here,' mine means my books, [Fist] and it must be deemed a personal pronoun possessive in the third person plural, and nominative to the verb are."--Smart's Accidence, p. xxii. If to say, these "possessive cases must be called a class of pronouns, used substantively, and deemed nominatives or objectives," is not absurd, then nothing can be. Nor is any thing in grammar more certain, than that the pronoun "mine" can only be used by the speaker or writer, to denote himself or herself as the owner of something. ”

“ The very modesty which suppresses, as far as possible, the personal pronoun in our addresses to others, testifies to our sense that we are hiding away some utterly insignificant and unworthy thing; a thing that has no business even to be, except in that utter privacy which is rather a sleep and a rest than living. ”

“ Under the new civilization and in contact with foreign peoples who can hardly utter a sentence without a personal pronoun, the majority of the old quasi personal pronouns are dropping out of use, while those in continued use are fast rising to the position of full-fledged personal pronouns. This, however, is not due to the development of self-consciousness on the part of the people, but only to the development of the language in the direction of complete and concise expression of thought. ”

“ The reflected personal pronoun.—In the English language there is no equivalent to the Latin se, the German sich, and the Scandinavian sik, and sig.
It follows from this that the word self is used to a greater extent than would otherwise be the case.
I strike me is awkward, but not ambiguous.
Thou strikest thee is awkward, but not ambiguous.
He strikes him is ambiguous; inasmuch as him may mean either the person who strikes or some one else. In order to be clear we add the word self when the idea is reflective. He strikes himself is, at once idiomatic and unequivocal. ”

“ The addition of -self to a personal pronoun forms a reflexive pronoun or intensive (I blamed myself. You yourself are at fault) . A noun for which the pronoun stands is called the antecedent. The uses of pronouns are in general the same as those of nouns. In addition, relatives serve as connectives (the man who spoke) , interrogatives ask questions (what man?) , and demonstratives point out (that man) . Verb.A verb is a word or word-group which makes an assertion about the subject. It may express either action or mere existence. ”

“ A Pronoun is a word used instead of a noun, to avoid repeating the same word; as, Pahpenatum eneneh, the man is happy; Pahpenatum, he is happy.
PERSONAL PRONOUNS.
There are three personal pronouns, viz. Neen, I; keen, thou; ween, he; with their plurals, Nenahwind, we; kenahwah, ye or you; wenahwah, they.
Personal pronouns have person, number, gender and case.
The persons of pronouns are three in each number, viz.
Number.—Pronouns have two numbers, the singular and the plural. ”

“ The POSSESSIVE PRONOUN, when applied to anything which has no relation to our body, is the genitive of the personal pronoun, placed after the noun: purpur rak—my hat; naun rom—thy house; ton rok—his hatchet; mad romad—our clothes ”

“ The first personal pronoun Ic is never found softened into Ich as in Laȝamon's Brut, the Ancren Riwle, and other Southern works. I is found only once or twice throughout the poem.
2. The first and second personal pronouns have a dual as well as a plural number; as, wit, we two; unc, us two; gunc, you two; gunker, of you two.
3. Hine (hin, in) (acc.) occasionally occurs, but more frequently him (dat.) does duty for it. ”

“ We shall betray no confidence; and should we be compelled to speak somewhat more in the first person, and of ourselves, than may seem quite accordant with good taste, our readers will, we trust, suffer us to remind them that we do not commit the fault very often, or very offensively, and that the present employment of the personal pronoun, just a little modified by the editorial we, seems inevitably incident to the special line of statement on which we propose to enter. ”

“ The demonstrative pronoun is, ea, id, as we learned in § 115, is regularly used as the personal pronoun of the third person (he, she, it, they, etc.) . 280. The personal pronouns of the first person are ego, I ”

“ The demonstrative or personal pronoun is the substantive in another form.—The two propositions (1) the man is come; (2) he rides= (1) the man is come; (2) the man rides.
4. Hence the relative is the equivalent to a demonstrative pronoun, or to a substantive, indifferently.
5. But the relative is the equivalent to the pronoun and substantive, and something more. In sentences like
The man is come—he rides—
The man is come—the man rides.
The identity between the person mentioned in the two propositions is implied, not expressed. ”

“ The independent personal pronouns are the forms used when the pronoun is not immediate­ly dependent on a noun, a verb or an inflected prepo­sition. They occur (a) at the beginning of a sentence, see § 162 vii (2) ;— (b) after a conjunc­tion or un­inflected prepo­sition, including fel, megis;— (c) after ys ‘it is’, mae (mai) ‘that it is’, panyw id., pei ‘if it were’, etc., and after the un­inflected heb y ‘said’ (heb y mi § 198 i) . Inde­pendent personal pronouns are either simple, redupli­cated or conjunc­tive; thus:
i. Simple: sg. 1. mi, 2. ti, 3. m. ef, f. hi; pl. 1. ni, 2. chw̯i, 3. Ml. ”

“ In truth, if this theory is unable to explain the facts it recognizes, much less can it account for those it ignores.
To interpret correctly the phenomena we are considering, we must ask ourselves how personal pronouns have arisen in other languages. Did the primitive Occidental man produce them outright from the moment that he discovered himself? Far from it. There are abundant reasons for believing that every personal pronoun is a degenerate or, if you prefer, a developed noun. ”

“ Book, a common, concrete noun; singular number; objective case, object of the verb lost.
Street, a common, concrete noun; singular number; objective case, object of the preposition on.
LESSON XXII. PERSONAL PRONOUNS.
Name the pronouns in the following sentences, and state which denote the speaker, which the person spoken to, and which the person or thing spoken of:—
A pronoun that shows by its form whether it denotes the speaker, the person spoken to, or the person spoken of, is called a personal pronoun. ”

“ The endings sen, seln, sens are chiefly confined to the n.Midl. dialects. The endings self, selves are hardly ever used in Sc. Irel. n.Cy. and n.Midlands. Frequently the objective case of the simple personal pronoun is used with a reflexive meaning, especially in Sc. n.Cy. and n.Midl., as: get thee dressed while I wash me. In Sc. theirsel is used when the idea is collective, theirsels when it is segregate. ”

“ The epithets employed, when conversation commences, are in keeping with the character of the people. The familiar use of the personal pronoun is not indulged in; on the contrary, "venerable uncle,"—"honourable brother,"—"virtuous companion,"—or "excellent sir,"—in addressing a stranger, are used instead of the pronoun "you;" ”

“ A pronoun, whether personal, demonstrative, or relative, is a wonderful linguistic invention, enabling the speaker to carry on long trains of unbroken thought. Its invention was no more connected with the sense of self, than was the invention of any labor-saving device. ”

“ When self is added to the personal pronouns, as himself, myself, itself, themselves, &c. they are called compound personal pronouns, and are used in the nominative or objective case, but not in the possessive. ”

“ The personal pronoun distinguishes three persons, see Illustration 3: The first person is the self of the speaking subject; the second person is the speaking subject addressed; the third person is the person neither originating the speech nor directly addressed. ”

“ They are referred both to singular and plural antecedents.
There are two more words used only in conjunction with pronouns, own and self.
Own is added to possessives, both singular and plural, as my own hand, our own house. It is emphatical, and implies a silent contrariety, or opposition; as, I live in my own house, that is, not in a hired house. This I did with my own hand, that is, without help or not by proxy.
Self is added to possessives, as myself, yourselves; and sometimes to personal pronouns, as himself, itself, themselves. ”

“ The indefinite adjective pronoun one when put in place of a personal substantive is liable to raise confusion. When a sentence or expression is begun with the impersonal one the word must be used throughout in all references to the subject. Thus, "One must mind one's own business if one wishes to succeed" may seem prolix and awkward, nevertheless it is the proper form. ”

“ Further, there is a reflexive pronoun, g a себя (with no n form) , used when an object is the same person as the subject: я вижу себя "I see myself"; он дал себе слово "he gave himself his word"; вы говорите о себе "you are talking about yourself (or yourselves) ." ”

“ The personal pronouns form an extremely natural class, if the pronouns of the two first persons (and se when found in the language) be taken by themselves. This is not the case if they be taken along with he, it, and she. The absence of gender, the peculiarity in their declension, and their defectiveness are marked characters wherein they agree with each other, but not with any other words. ”

“ Unlike other words, the personal pronouns have, apparently, no uniform meaning, but convey different and even opposite ideas when employed by different persons. It seems remarkable that children should master the problem before they arrive at considerable power of abstract reasoning. ”

“ OBS. 3.—The pronouns I and thou, in their different modifications, stand immediately for persons that are, in general, sufficiently known without being named; (I meaning the speaker, and thou, the hearer;) their antecedents, or nouns, are therefore generally understood. The other personal pronouns, also, are sometimes taken in a general and demonstrative sense, to denote persons or things not previously mentioned; as, "He that hath knowledge, spareth his words."—Bible. Here he is equivalent to the man, or the person. ”

“ In societies where subjection is extreme "there is an avoidance of the use of personal pronouns," though, as Herbert Spencer points out in illustrating this law, it is just among such societies that the most elaborate distinctions in pronominal forms of address are to be found. ”

“ Penniman always, even in conversation, italicised her personal pronouns. ”

“ For this end were the Personal Pronouns invented and such is their character and office. “I,” is the generical mark which includes all marks of the class, speakers. “Thou,” is a generical mark, which includes all marks of the class, persons spoken to. “He,” “she,” “it,” are marks, which include all marks of the class, persons or things spoken of.
By forming Adjectives from certain kinds of Nouns we obtain a useful class of specific names. From wool we make woollen ”

“ The charge of strange perverseness may, in this instance, I think, be retorted upon the critic; and that, to the fair exculpation of those who choose to conform to the general usage which offends him.
OBS. 26.—Of the compound personal pronouns, this author gives the following account: "Self, in the plural selves, a noun, is often combined with the personal pronouns, in order to express emphasis, or opposition, or the identity of the subject and [the] object of a verb ”