Limits of the pronoun class

The limits of the pronoun class are somewhat difficult to define. That is, there are words which have some pronominal features, without being full pronouns, or, even, have other features which are not pronominal at all. We may take the word many as a case in point.

Many is in several respects similar in meaning and function to the pronouns some and several; -cf. some children, some of the children, some of them; several children, several of the children, several of them; many children, many of the children, many of them. In this respect many differs from adjectives, which of course cannot be followed by the group "of + noun or pronoun". That would favour the view that many belongs to the pronoun class. On the other hand, however, many has an important characteristic which separates it from pronouns and brings it together with adjectives; it has degrees of comparison: more, (the) most. No pronoun has degrees of comparison, and indeed the pronouns some and several, which stand so close to many in other respects, cannot form such degrees. So, in determining the part of speech to which many belongs we have to decide which of its characteristics is more essential, unless we prefer to state that many, few, much and little are hybrids, partaking both of pronouns and of adjectives. adjectives. Since the choice of the more essential feature re-mains somewhat arbitrary, the conclusion on the word many may be affected by it. If, for example, we decide that the morphological feature is more essential, we will say that many is an adjective, but we shall have to add that it shares some vital syntactical features with pronouns. Another case in point is the word certain. When used as a pre-dicative it is of course an adjective, as in the sentence, We were quite certain of the fact. Things are different, however, when cer-tain is used as an attribute standing before a noun and has a mean-ing much the same as some, e. g. There are certain indications that this is true, or, A certain Mr Brown wants to see you. The question arises, is this the same word, the adjective certain as in the first sentence, or is it a pronoun? Here, too, we should apply some objective tests. One of the peculiarities of the word is that it can be preceded by the indefinite article, which generally is not the case with pronouns. 1 We must also find out whether cer-tain can be followed by the group "of + noun or pronoun". If no such examples are met with, we shall have to conclude that there are no sufficient reasons to class certain with the pronouns, in spite of the peculiar meaning it has in such sentenceS.