There are many examples in English pronouns of the same phonetic unit used to express different meanings in different contexts. So the question arises whether this is a case of polysemy, that is, different meanings of the same word, or of homonymy, that is, different words sounding alike. We may state the following cases in point: that demonstrative and that relative; who interrogative and who relative; which interrogative and which relative; myself (and the other self-pronouns) reflexive, and the same pronouns intensive (non-reflexive).

It ought to be emphasised that what we mean here is the grammatical category of number, and the question is, in what pronouns and to what extent that category is actually found.

In dealing with the category of case in pronouns, we must bear in mind that they need not in this respect be similar to nouns.

We usually find in grammars a classification of pronouns into personal, possessive, interrogative, indefinite, relative, etc. It is clear, however, that some points in that classification are not grammatical at all.

As we have already seen , the definition of pronouns as a separate part of speech has caused many difficulties.

There is also the question of the opposite phenomenon — that of nouns becoming adjectives. For a variety of reasons, this question presents a number of difficulties and has, accordingly, given rise to prolonged and inconclusive discussions. The facts are, briefly stated, these. In Modern English a noun may stand before another noun and modify it.

It is common knowledge that adjectives can, under certain circumstances, be substantivised, i. e. become nouns. This is a phenomenon found in many languages, e. g. in Russian: compare ученый человек and ученый; рабочий стаж and рабочий. In German, compare ein gelehrter Mann and ein Gelehrter; in French, un homme savant and un savant, etc. The phenomenon is also frequent enough in English. The questions which arise in this connection are: (a) what criteria should be applied to find out if an adjective is substantivised or not? (b) is a substantivised adjective a noun, or is it not?

The basic meaning of the superlative is that of a degree of a property surpassing all the other objects mentioned or implied.

When giving above the forms of the superlative degree we always added the definite article in parentheses. We did so because it remains somewhat doubtful whether the article belongs to the noun defined by the adjective in the superlative degree, or whether it makes part and parcel of the superlative form itself. To find an answer to this question, it is, apparently, necessary to know whether the definite article is ever used with a superlative form where it cannot be said to belong to a noun. Some examples, rare though they are, go some way to prove that the definite article can at least be said to have a tendency to become an appendix of the superlative form itself, rather than of the noun to which the adjective in the superlative degree is an attribute.

The first question which arises here is, how many degrees of comparison has the English adjective (and, for that matter, the adjective in other languages, such as Russian, Latin, or German)? If we take, for example, the three forms of an English adjective: large, larger, (the) largest, shall we say that they are, all three of them, degrees of comparison?