But while they fought a thrush came by,
And with the worm away did fly.
“There, my lord,” continued Pronoun, “all the words, each, one, other, neither, either, stand for sparrow in those lines, and as sparrow is a noun, they must be pronouns.”
“They are adjective-pronouns sometimes,” remarked Mr. Adjective, “for you can say, ‘each boy,’ ‘the other day,’ ‘on either side.’”
“Certainly,” said the Judge. “Have you any more, Mr. Pronoun?”
“Who, which, what,” continued Pronoun.
“You must show that they are pronouns,” said the Judge.
“‘Here is the man who shot the tiger,’” said Pronoun. “‘Here are two apples; which do you choose?’ ‘I know what I want.’ Who stands instead of the man, because you could say, ‘Here is the man; the man shot the tiger.’ Which stands instead of one of the apples, and what stands instead of the thing that I want, whatever it may be.”
“Yes,” said Serjeant Parsing. “But if who and what are used to ask questions, as, ‘who is there?’ ‘what is that?’ then what do who and what stand instead of?”
“If you will answer the questions, and tell me who was really there, and what that really was, then I will tell you what nouns who and what stand instead of; but if you do not know any answer to your own questions, then of course I cannot tell you what noun my little pronouns stand for; I can only tell you they stand instead of something, and therefore are pronouns.”