In the Cambridge Grammar of the English Language (Huddleston & Pullum 2002) and many other grammars, the English pronouns are viewed as a subcategory of the English nouns. In other grammars, such as the Comprehensive Grammar of the English Language (Quirk et al. 1985) pronouns are considered a separate category of word, so that we have nouns, pronouns, adjectives, verbs so on and so forth. What are the arguments for including and excluding English pronouns from the English noun category?
Learn English – Are pronouns nouns
nounsparts-of-speechpronouns
Best Answer
My answer complements this and a previous discussion of the issue
Pronouns: a word class or a subclass of nouns?
by quoting extensively from Aarts' analysis in Modern English Grammar on pages 44-46 under the heading Pronouns (Oxford University Press, 2011).
Aarts goes on to note:
I think Aarts makes a convincing enough case for pronouns to be regarded as a sub-class of noun rather than a word class in their own right. But I do not expect that this modern analysis will have much impact on pedagogic grammars (as opposed to Aarts' descriptive grammar) or teaching materials.