This pioneering study of pronouns takes into account more than 250 languages. It contrasts personal pronouns with pronouns such as demonstratives, interrogatives, and relatives and shows that they belong to two distinct categories. Previously undiscovered characteristics of the two categories of pronouns are introduced and examined in detail from a cross-linguistic and functional perspective.

This book argues that the assumption that grammatical relations are both necessary and universal is an unwarranted generalization. The grammatical relations of subject and object are required in the case of the Indian language of Kannada. Furthermore, the notion of transitivity or transference which forms the basis for postulating grammatical relations does not play the expected central role in all languages: in the case of another Indian language, Manipuri, it is volitionality and transitivity which plays the central role in clause structure. Dr. Bhat argues against the universality and...