ON THE METAPHORICAL USE OF PERSONAL PRONOUNS AND VERB FORMS IN ESTONIAN AND RUSSIAN

The article is devoted to the metaphorical use of personal pronouns and their respective verb forms in Russian and Estonian. In Russian and Estonian the systems of personal pronouns are quite similar, however their metaphorical use is not identical in these languages. While most cases of the metaphorical use of personal pronouns and related verb forms are nonetheless the same in Estonian and Russian, one can still point out some minor dissimilarities. Significant differences appear in two cases: 1) the possibility of replacing the 1(st) person plural form with the 3(rd) person singular form exists only in Estonian; 2) the use of the 3(rd) person plural form instead of the 1(st) person singular form in Russian requires a completely different grammatical choice in Estonian: a form of impersonal voice. It is curious that several cases of the metaphorical use of personal pronouns and verb forms appear in communication with young children.The list of cases of the metaphorical use of pronouns and verb forms analysed in this paper cannot be considered exhaustive, however it should demonstrate that every personal pronoun can be used metaphorically in Russian and Estonian. Nevertheless, it is important to keep all these differences between languages in mind when teaching or translating.