First Grammar Lessons: Part IV, Lesson XIII

You remember we found, in the lesson about adjectives, many which have no particular meaning.

These have a double use: they belong to nouns, as we saw before, and also they are used instead of nouns.

We may say, Give me a few apples, where few is an adjective belonging to apples.

Or we may say, Give me a few, leaving out apples, so that few stands for apples as a pronoun would.

Of course apples is understood in the second sentence, though we do not say it.

So with:

Give me another pen.
Give me another.
Will you have some bread?
I have some.

Because these words have this double use, they are called pronoun-adjectives.

To be learnt.

Pronoun-adjectives may stand for nouns, and so may be subjects or objects in a sentence.

1. Give pronoun-adjectives as subjects in the blanks, as follows:

(Another) is wanted.
(A few) were saved.
(Some) are ripe now.

2. Supply pronoun-adjectives as objects in the following:

Have you _____ (any)?
Give me _____ (some).

3. Look for the words some, any, few, many, several, one, and other, and say whether they are used with a noun or instead of a noun in each case.