Talk:English pronouns

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WikiProject English Language

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Text and/or other creative content from [[English grammar]] was copied or moved into English pronouns. The former page's [ history] now serves to provide attribution for that content in the latter page, and it must not be deleted so long as the latter page exists.

Just one nugget among many[edit]

The article currently tells me that:

Those types that are indisputably pronouns are the personal pronouns, relative pronouns, interrogative pronouns, and reciprocal pronouns. The full set is presented in the following table along with dummy there. Nonstandard, informal and archaic forms are in italics.

And [unitalicized] that is given as a restrictive relative pronoun.

If I say "I don't know how this article became the mess that it is", what's restricted by the relative clause? (I suggest: Nothing. And therefore "restrictive" is a misnomer. True, I'm just a nobody with a net connection; but I can cite a reliable source that agrees with me.)

The Cambridge Grammar of the English Language doesn't merely state that that isn't a pronoun; it argues that it isn't one. CamGEL may be wrong; but to say that that is indisputably a pronoun is clearly untrue.

I'd say that most English pronouns are outside any scale from formal to informal. If someone says "I'll phone you tomorrow", I can't think of any alternatives to "I" or "you" that would make the result more or less formal. Should "Nonstandard, informal and archaic forms are in italics" be instead "Nonstandard, markedly informal and archaic forms are in italics"? -- Hoary (talk) 11:42, 26 February 2023 (UTC)Reply[reply]