Distributive pronoun

A distributive pronoun considers members of a group separately, rather than collectively.

They include either, neither and others.

[http://classiclit.about.com/library/bl-etexts/wmbaskervill/bl-wmbaskervill-grammar-syntax-pronouns.htm An English Grammar] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20050919145544/http://classiclit.about.com/library/bl-etexts/wmbaskervill/bl-wmbaskervill-grammar-syntax-pronouns.htm |date=2005-09-19 }}, 1896.

Besides distributive pronouns, there are also distributive determiners (also called distributive adjectives). The pronouns and determiners often have the same form:

  • Each went his own way (each used as a pronoun, without an accompanying noun)
  • Each man went his own way (each used as a determiner, accompanying the noun man)
  • Each of the answers is correct (each used as a pronoun, with an accompanying prepositional phrase of the answers)

Languages other than English

=Biblical Hebrew=

A common distributive idiom in Biblical Hebrew used an ordinary word for man, 'ish ({{Script/Hebrew|איש}}). Brown Driver Briggs only provides four representative examples—Gn 9:5; 10:5; 40:5; Ex 12:3.

Brown Driver Briggs: 36.

Of the many other examples of the idiom in the Hebrew Bible, the best known is a common phrase used to describe everyone returning to their own homes. It is found in 1 Samuel 10:25 among other places.

Biblia Hebraica Stuttgartensia

  • {{Script/Hebrew|איש לביתו}}
  • ... 'ish l'beyto.
  • ... a man to his house. [literal]
  • ... each went home. [sense]

This word, 'ish, was often used to distinguish men from women. "She shall be called Woman ({{Script/Hebrew|אשה}}) because she was taken out of Man ({{Script/Hebrew|איש}})," is well known,King James Version of the Bible but the distinction is also clear in Gn 19:8; 24:16 and 38:25 (see note for further references).Also Ex 22:15; Lv 15:16, 18; 20:10f; Nu 5:13f; Dt 22:22f; Is 4:1; and others. Brown Driver Briggs:35. However, it could also be used generically in this distributive idiom (Jb 42:11; I Ch 16:3).Brown Driver Briggs:36.

=Greek=

The most common distributive pronoun in classical Greek was hekastos ({{lang|grc|ἕκαστος}}, each).

See also

References

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