Form and Meaning of Pronouns in the English, German and Russian Language

Seminar paper from the year 2007 in the subject Speech Science / Linguistics, grade: 1,7, Free University of Berlin (Institut für Englische Philologie), course: HS Understanding English-German Contrasts, language: English, abstract: Since pronouns are the main grammatical devices by which acts of speaking are tied to the persons who are engaged in the conversation, many linguists investigate how pronouns are employed as a means of coming to understand the ways that speech and society are related. The expression 'central pronouns' for personal , reflexive and possessive pronouns suggests that these subclasses have a number of features in common and that other, more peripheral pronominal subclasses can be characterized by properties not shared by all members. It appears that the class of pronouns is conceptualized by Quirk et al. and other authors as something like a 'cluster' or 'radial category' with a prototypical core represented by personal pronouns. With regard to their referential functions, those pronouns are traditionally described in terms of deixis and anaphora. The aim of this paper is to give an overview of the pronominal systems of English, German and Russian and to compare them. The special focus of comparison is the reflexive pronouns due to their complexity and in some aspects controversy.