Relative pronouns and their lexical and grammatical characteristics

Relative pronouns, along with personal, possessive and pronouns of other categories, do not name objects and attributes like other independent parts of speech, but point to them. Therefore, basically, only by context we can determine the concrete meaning of the pronoun. For example, the word "which" in the sentence: "Who is the house?" Is an interrogative pronoun, and in the sentence: "I saw a dream that I remembered for a long time" - relative.

Semantic and morphological characteristics and properties of pronouns allow them to correlate with adjectives, numerals, nouns, adverbs. The so-called impersonal pronoun stands apart:

• Pronouns-nouns: who, who, who, whom, you, me, etc .;
• Pronouns-adjectives: such, another, someone's, etc .;
• Pronouns-adverbs: once, always, why, here, etc .;
• Pronouns comparable with impersonally-predicative words, i.e. Impersonal pronouns: this is what it is;
• Pronouns-numerals: how many, so many (indicate the generalized number).

Relative pronouns in Russian have a number of features. For them, semantic and grammatical diversity is characteristic, because Words belonging to this group - which, whose, how much - can express interrogative relations, and can act as a union words in the sentence . In the first sense, they contain the question of the subject, the attribute, and do not point to it, and in the second, they connect the main and subordinate parts in a complex sentence.

Grammatical subtleties of relative pronouns

• Relative pronouns who, that do not have a category of number and gender. But on them you can determine whether an animate or inanimate object is being talked about. At the same time, a pronoun who has a combining opportunity with words that are in both singular and plural numbers: But those who argued with him yesterday were now nodding their heads approvingly. I do not remember who laughed with you!
• In the sentence with the pronoun, who , in order to reach agreement with the feminine gender, often use a pronoun such : I wondered who this girl was . This is due to the fact that, according to grammatical norms, words that are associated with the pronoun who, are used in the form of a masculine gender.
• If the pronoun in the sentence is an allied word, its genus is determined by the generic noun, with which it is related: The dream that had dreamed to the father did not give us peace for a long time. Usually the words that are associated with this pronoun are used in the form of the middle genus.
• The pronoun that is traditionally used only in the form of a single number: No matter how much we listened to the motor, it remained unclear to us what noise there is.
• Relative pronouns who, that are inclined as follows: who as a pronoun this, that, and that - as the whole: Who is this, whom - this, who - these, about whom - about this, etc. What - everything, everything, everything, everything, everything, everything, everything, everything, etc.
• Performing in the complex sentences the function of the union word, the relative pronouns are members of the sentence and are underlined in accordance with this: Tell me, what is your assessment on the control? (The word "what" is underscored by a wavy line, because it is a pronoun)

Controversial moments in morphology

Not all linguists, authors of textbooks and teaching aids in the Russian language, agree with the allocation of relative and interrogative pronouns into separate classes. Some consider them to be the same words that simply perform different tasks in sentences:

• Serve to express the question in interrogative sentences;
• Fulfill the role of union words.

Thus, according to their calculations, the pronouns in terms of value are not 9, but 8 digits.

In the opinion of other linguists, and their majority, these are words of different categories, but coincide in form, i.e. Which are homonyms.