Distributive pronoun

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

They include each, any, either, neither and others.

• "to each his own" — 'each2,(pronoun)' Merriam-Webster's Online Dictionary (2007)
• "Men take each other's measure when they react." — Ralph Waldo Emerson^[1]

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)

Languages other than English

Biblical Hebrew

A common distributive idiom in Biblical Hebrew used an ordinary word for man, 'ish (איש). Brown Driver Briggs only provides four representative examples — Gn 9:5; 10:5; 40:5; Ex 12:3.^[2] 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.^[3]

• 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 (אשה) because she was taken out of Man (איש)," is well known,^[4] but the distinction is also clear in Gn 19:8; 24:16 and 38:25 (see note for further references).^[5] However, it could also be used generically in this distributive idiom (Jb 42:11; I Ch 16:3).^[6]

Greek

The most common distributive pronoun in classical Greek was hekastos (ἕκαστος, each).

See also

• Adjective
• Pronoun
• Quantification

References

1. William Malone Baskervill and James Witt Sewell, An English Grammar, 1896.
2. Brown Driver Briggs: 36.
3. Biblia Hebraica Stuttgartensia
4. King James Version of the Bible
5. 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.
6. Brown Driver Briggs:36.

External links

• Jeffrey T. Runner and Elsi Kaiser. 'Binding in Picture Noun Phrases: Implications for Binding Theory'. In Proceedings of the HPSG05 Conference. Edited by Stefan Müller. Lisbon: CSLI Publications, 2005.
• Glossary of English Grammar Terms UsingEnglish.com