If pronouns are a universal linguistic structure, then doesn't that suggest that the cognition that they reference is innate rather than linguistically acquired? How does one determine that consciousness requires the linguistic category, rather than the other way around?
I can see how, in children, the development of consciousness and the meaningful use of pronouns might coincide, and that the two might be conflated in a description of normative developmental psychology.
If one strictly regards consciousness as emerging from language development, however, the suggestion is that a child that was never capable of speech or language comprehension would never actually become conscious.
It also leaves as an open (and rather curious) question whether an adult would continue to be conscious after the onset of any of the more serious categories of aphasia.