Sub sentential and sentential rules can sometimes appear arbitrary and make learning more difficult Giving students reasons for why things are the way they are can aid students in learning English grammar, we believe. It also helps students see how grammar and communication interface, thus addressing, although not entirely solving, the common problem of students' not being able to activate their knowledge of grammar when they are engaged in communication. | Chapter 16 Reference and Possession 299 The possessive pronouns however replace an entire noun phrase and can function as subjects or objects Æ Hal has an excellent word processing program. B Really Mine has more options. subject A Do you like Joe s new car B I prefer yours. object The wÄ-question word routinely associated with these referential possessive forms is whose it is used most frequently as a determiner but occasionally occurs as a pronoun Whose umbrella is this Reflexive Pronouns The other major set of forms that function as personal reference pronouns arc the reflexive pronouns Singular Plural 1 st person myself ourselves 2nd person yourself yourselves 3rd person herself himself itself themselves oneself Can you see anything unusual about the forms of the pronouns that precede the stem self selves It should be apparent that the third person masculine singular reflexive pronoun himself the third person plural reflexive pronoun themselves and the neutral formal third person pronoun oneself are formed differently from the others in that they contain the object form of the personal pronoun self selves whereas the others consist of the possessive determiner self selves. This is a possible source of error for ESL EFL students who imagine the paradigm to be regular and thus erroneously produce hisself and theirselves forms that also occur in some nonstandard dialects of English. When used in their underlying reflexive sense reflexive pronouns replace NP objects that have the same referent as the subject of the sentence subject object Sally cut herself. t__I Reciprocal Pronouns Two other phrasal forms routinely used to express personal reference are the reciprocal pronouns each other and one another. Like reflexive pronouns both replace NP objects that typically refer back to NP subjects in the same sentence. However for these forms the subject must be conjoined or plural Bob and Dick can t stand each other. The five children in that family helped .
