bug(core): codebase treats pronouns as a type of noun

[hippietrail]

Nouns and pronouns share some but not all properties.

In grammar and linguistics there is an umbrella term that covers both: nominal

At present for people who know some amount of grammar and linguistics terminology and want to contribute, the codebase is confusing and ambiguous.

Lint rules etc often refer to nouns where it means either nouns or pronouns.

When something specifically refers only to pronouns, it first checks if a word is noun and then checks for the pronoun metadata property.

Nouns and pronouns can both be the head of nominal phrases, and both have the concepts of number (singular vs plural) but only nouns have a "proper" property. Both nouns and pronouns have possessive but they are very different. I've already found odd problems because of this.

Nouns form possessives by the suffix -'s
Pronouns with the suffix -'s are contractions, and only 3rd person singular pronouns are amenable: he's, she's, it's
Many people confuse those contractions with possessives, and contributors to Harper are not immune.

Possessive nouns come before the possessed noun. But the equivalent of this with pronouns are possessive adjectives

Earth's atmosphere
man's intelligence
my brother
our idea
its size

Possessive pronouns stand in for another noun, when it is the thing that's possessed. Nouns don't have an equivalent.

My car. That car is mine.
Is it his or is it hers?

I highly recommend splitting up the current noun functions and properties into nominal, noun, and pronoun. I'm looking through the code now to see if I can do it on my own or not...