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Chapter Ii the Forms of English Personal Pronouns in the Modern Arabic Short Stories Book by Ronak Husni & Daniel L. Newman

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Chapter Ii the Forms of English Personal Pronouns in the Modern Arabic Short Stories Book by Ronak Husni & Daniel L. Newman CHAPTER II THE FORMS OF ENGLISH PERSONAL PRONOUNS IN THE MODERN ARABIC SHORT STORIES BOOK BY RONAK HUSNI & DANIEL L. NEWMAN In this chapter II the researcher will explain about research finding and discussion 1 that will describe the first research question from the first chapter namely how are the forms of English personal pronouns in the modern arabic short stories book by Ronak Husni & Daniel L. Newman. 2.1 The Forms of English Personal Pronouns In this discussion, the researcher will explain about the form of English personal pronouns found in two short stories in the modern short stories book by Ronak Husni and Daniel L. Newman which viewed from its kinds and function on sentence. Before that, the researcher will explain about forms of English personal pronoun and its function in sentence which will be related by the finding about the forms of english personal pronouns found in the book that will discussed here. As known that English Personal pronouns are pronouns that used to substitute person or things. It stands for one or more persons and things that differ in form depending on their case (Eggenschewiller and Emily, 2001: 29). And according to Radford (2004: 25), personal pronouns differ morphologically from nouns and other pronouns in modern English in that they generally have partially distinct nominative, accusative and genitive case form. In other word, personal pronouns have the various forms that characterized by their case. In some languages, the term “ case” defined as a grammatical category that shows the function of the noun or noun phrase in a sentence. For example, German has four cases are nominative, accusative, dative, genitive (Richards and Schmidt, 2002: 63). Whereas in English has three cases are nominative, objective, and possessive. The nominative case form is the form of a noun or noun phrase which usually shows that the noun or noun phrase can function as the subject of the sentence, there is another term of nominative case, it is subjective case (Eggenschewiller, Emily 2001: 29). While, accusative case form is the form of a noun or noun phrase which shows that it functions as the direct object of the verb in a sentence (Richards and Schmidt, 2002: 6). And genitive case forms is the form of a noun or noun phrase which usually shows that the noun or noun phrase is in a possessive relation with another noun or noun phrase in a 22 23 sentence (Richards and Schmidt, 2002: 223). Along with those views, Bernard (2000: 75) states that: The subjective case applies when nouns/ pronouns appear as subject of finite verbs or as subjective complements of linking verbs. The objective case applies when nouns/ pronouns appear as objects of finite verbs or as objects of prepositions. The possessive case applies when we wish to note ownership by animate beings. From here, we known that personal pronouns has the same cases as noun or noun phrase, because personal pronoun have most same functions as nouns. It caused in English, there are only two parts of speech, they are nouns and pronouns that have case (Rozakis, 2003: 20). So that, when personal pronouns appear as subject of finite verbs or as subject complements of linking verbs well in verbal or nominal sentences, so it is in nominative case (subjective case), just like when personal pronouns appear as object of finite verbs or as object of preposition, so it is in accusative case (objective case), and when we wish to note ownership, it is possessive case. Complying with its case, there are some changes of their form. It means that they change form depending on how they are used in a sentence and it shows the different functions in the sentence. In the nominative case, the personal pronoun is used as a subject, e.g. I threw the ball. In the objective case, the personal pronoun I change to me, because it is used as an object, e.g. Give the ball to me. And in the possessive case, it change to my or mine, because it is used to show ownership, e.g. that is my ball or The ball is mine. The following table shows the three cases of personal pronouns: Table 2.1 Three Cases of Personal Pronouns Nominative Objective Possessive (Personal Pronoun as subject) (Personal Pronoun as object) (Ownership) I Me My, Mine You You Your, Yours He Him His She Her Her, Hers It It Its We Us Our, Ours They Them Their, Theirs Source : English Grammar for the Utterly Confused, 2003 24 Along with those views, Azar (2002: 132) also said that the personal pronouns forms are divided in to three types, namely: Subject Pronouns (I, You, We, They, He, She, It), Object Pronouns (Me, You, Us,Them, Him, Her, It) and Possessive Pronouns (Mine, Yours, Ours, Theirs, Hers, His, Its). But in genitive case (possession form) there is possessive pronoun that sometimes called „possessive adjective‟, but it has personal pronoun counterparts, they are My, Your, Our, His, Her, Their, Its (Swick, 2005:88). From those views, the researcher gets the point that the forms of personal pronouns in English are differentiated into three cases namely nominative forms (subject pronoun) are I, you, we, they, she, he, and it, accusative pronoun (object pronoun) that are me, us, you, them, him, her and it and genitive pronoun (possessive pronoun) that are my/mine, our/ ours, your/ yours, their/ theirs, his/ his, her/ hers and its/ its. The forms of personal pronouns are not only differentiated by the cases, but also by the person, number and gender. As Radford (2004: 26) “Personal Pronouns encode the grammatical properties of (first, second or third) person, (singular or plural) number, (masculine, feminine or neuter/ inanimate) gender and (nominative, accusative or genitive) case…”. According to Downing and Locke (2006: 411), personal pronouns I and we are first person. You is second person, singular and plural. He, she, it and they are third person. Exactly, it characterized by person. Bernard (2000: 75) states that: Person is a grammatical category that points out and notes the speaker. Generally we have a speaker and a person who is addressed. Often they are the same; other times they are not. The first person is I or We, the second person is you, and the third person is he, she, it and they. So based on person, means when it used to point the user or a speaker and a person who is addressed. When we use it for ourselves such as I/me/ my/ mine and we/ us/ our/ ours, it called first person. When we use it to refer the person we are speaking to like “you/ your/yours” it called second person. When we use it to refer the other person such as “he/ him/ his/ his, she/ her/ her/ hers, they/them/ their/ theirs, and it/ it/its” it called the third person. The forms of personal pronouns also characterized by number of person or things. While number is a grammatical category referring to singular and plural forms. Singular refers to one person speaking or spoken to; plural refers to more than one person speaking or spoken to (Bernard, 2000: 75). Hence, it divided into two groups that are: 25 singular and plural. Singular personal pronouns are I/ me/, you/ you, she/ her, he/ him, and it/ it. And the plural personal pronouns are you/ you, we/ us and they/ them. Besides that, the English personal pronouns also identified by gender. “Gender is a grammatical term for classifying nouns according to masculine, feminine and neuter” (Dykes, 2007: 32). Gender in personal pronouns used specially for the third person- singular that is he (masculine), she (feminine) and it (neuter) (Kolln and Funk, 2012: 290). It supported by Swick (2005: 12) states that he is always masculine, she is always feminine, and it is always neuter. While, the plural of the third person pronouns is always they whether for masculine, feminine or neuter. From the explanation above, the researcher concludes that the forms of English personal pronouns are characterized by person (first, second, third), number (singular, plural), gender (female, male, neuter), and case ( nominative/subject, accusative/object, genitive/possessive). And for detail, the researcher classifies them into the table, these are the forms of English personal pronouns: Table 2.2 The Form of English Personal Pronouns FORM OF ENGLISH Person PERSONAL PRONOUNS 1st 2nd 3rd Number (Singular/Plural) Sg Pl Sg/Pl Sg Sg Sg Pl Gender F/M F/M F/M M F N F/M/N (Female/Male/Neuter) Nominative (Subject) I We You He She It They Accusative (Object) Me Us You Him Her It Them Case Genitive Adjective My Our Your His Her Its Their (Possessive) Pronoun Main Ours Yours His Hers Its Theirs Source : Research Finding, 2014 From the table above, the researcher classifies English personal pronouns based on the person that characterized by gender, number and case, namely first person, it refers to the speaker (I, me, my, main, we, us, our, ours), second person, it refers to the person spoken to (you, your, yours) and third person, it refers to the person or thing being spoken of (he, him, his, she, her, hers, it, its, they, their, theirs). In possessive case, there are adjective pronoun (my, our, your, his, her, their) and possessive pronoun 26 (main, yours, ours, his, hers, theirs), they are not personal pronouns but it has personal pronoun counterparts (Swick, 2005:88). So it includes in the scope of the study about personal pronouns of this research. 2.2 The Function of English Personal Pronouns And viewed based on the functional grammar in the text, English personal pronouns function as subject, object and determiner in the sentence.
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