Not every pronoun is always a pronoun

Abstract

A homonymy analysis is proposed to explain the so-called “demonstrative use” of personal pronouns. This analysis explains why some pronouns (it) do not allow a demonstrative use, as demonstrated in Nunberg (1993). The absence of a demonstrative feature in it can also account for the fact that it does not allow deferred reference. It is argued on the basis of the structure of the nominal demonstrative paradigm that the homonymy analysis is more parsimonious than a single-item analysis.