Pro-form

{{Short description|Word or form that substitutes for another word}} {{More citations needed|date=December 2009}}

In linguistics, a '''pro-form''' is a type of function word or expression that stands in for (expresses the same content as) another word, phrase, clause or sentence where the meaning is recoverable from the context.<ref>{{cite book |last1=Crystal |first1=David |title=A dictionary of linguistics and phonetics |date=1985 |publisher=Basil Blackwell |edition=2nd}}</ref> They are used either to avoid repetitive expressions or in quantification (limiting the variables of a proposition).

Pro-forms are divided into several categories, according to which part of speech they substitute: * A pronoun substitutes a noun or a noun phrase, with or without a determiner: ''it'', ''this''. * A prop-word: ''one'', as in "the blue one" * A pro-adjective substitutes an adjective or a phrase that functions as an adjective: ''so'' as in "It is less ''so'' than we had expected." * A pro-adverb substitutes an adverb or a phrase that functions as an adverb: ''how'' or ''this way''. * A pro-verb substitutes a verb or a verb phrase: ''do'', as in: "I will go to the party if you do". * A pro-sentence substitutes an entire sentence or subsentence: ''Yes'', or ''that'' as in "''That'' is true".<ref>{{cite book|last=Rödl|first=Sebastian|title=Categories of the Temporal|year=2012|publisher=Harvard University Press|location=Cambridge, Massachusetts|isbn=978-0-674-04775-4|pages=22–25}}</ref>

An interrogative pro-form is a pro-form that denotes the (unknown) item in question and may itself fall into any of the above categories.

The rules governing allowable syntactic relations between certain pro-forms (notably personal and reflexive/reciprocal pronouns) and their antecedents have been studied in what is called binding theory.

==Table of correlatives== Some 19th-century grammars of Latin, such as Raphael Kühner's 1844 grammar,<ref>{{cite book |last1=Kühner |first1=Raphael |title=Elementargrammatik der lateinischen Sprache mit eingereihten lateinischen und deutschen Übersetzungsaufgaben und einer Sammlung lateinischer Lesestücke nebst den dazu gehörigen Wörterverzeichnissen |date=1844 |page=35 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=kwU1AQAAMAAJ&dq=kuhner+Grammatik&pg=PA35 |access-date=2022-12-02}}</ref> organized non-personal pronouns (interrogative, demonstrative, indefinite/quantifier, relative) in a table of "correlative" pronouns due to their similarities in morphological derivation and their syntactic relationships (as correlative pairs) in that language. Later that century, L. L. Zamenhof, the inventor of Esperanto, made use of the concept to systematically create the pro-forms and determiners of Esperanto in a regular ''table of correlatives''. The table of correlatives for English follows.

{| class="wikitable" style="white-space: nowrap" |- |+ '''Table of correlatives''' |- ! colspan="2" rowspan="2" | ! rowspan="2" | interrogative ! colspan="3" | demonstrative ! colspan="5" | quantifier |- ! proximal ! medial ! distal ! assertive existential ! elective/dubitative existential ! universal ! negatory ! positive alternative |- ! colspan="2" | determiner | which what | this (sg.) these (pl.) | that (sg.) those (pl.) | yon yonder | some | any whichever whichsoever | every each all | no | another |- ! rowspan="4" | pronoun ! human | who whom (obj.) | this (one) (sg.) these (ones) (pl.) | that (one) (sg.) those (ones) (pl.) | yon yonder | someone somebody | anyone anybody whoever whomever (obj.) whosoever whomsoever (obj.) | everyone everybody all | no one nobody | another someone else somebody else |- ! nonhuman | what | this (one) (sg.) these (ones) (pl.) | that (one) (sg.) those (ones) (pl.) | yon yonder | something | anything whatever whatsoever | everything all | nothing | something else else other |- ! out of two (dual) | rowspan="2" | which | rowspan="2" | this one (sg.) these (ones) (pl.) | rowspan="2" | that one (sg.) those (ones) (pl.) | rowspan="2" | yon yonder | one | either whichever whichsoever | both | neither | other |- ! out of many (plural) | some (pl.) one (sg.) | any whichever whichsoever | each all | none | another |- ! rowspan="6" | pro-adverb ! location | where | here | there | yonder | somewhere | anywhere wherever wheresoever | everywhere | nowhere | elsewhere |- ! source | whence | hence | thence | | somewhence | anywhence whencever whencesoever | everywhence | nowhence | elsewhence |- ! goal | whither | hither | thither | | somewhither | anywhither whitherever whithersoever | everywhither | nowhither | elsewhither |- ! time | when | now | then | | sometime somewhen | anytime anywhen whenever whensoever | ever always everywhen every time | never nowhen | another time elsewhen |- ! manner | how whereby | so hereby | thus thereby | | somehow | anyhow however howsoever | everyway everywise | no way nowise | otherwise elsewise |- ! reason | why wherefore | herefore | therefore | | ''for some reason'' somewhy | whyever whysoever | ''for every reason'' | ''for no reason'' nowhy | |- |}

Some languages may have more categories. See demonstrative.

Note that some categories are regular and some are not. They may be regular or irregular also depending on languages. The following chart shows comparison between English, French (irregular) and Japanese (regular):

{| class="wikitable" style="white-space: nowrap" |- ! rowspan="2" |   ! rowspan="2" | interrogative ! colspan="2" | quantifier |- ! existential !! negative |- ! human | who qui dare | someone quelqu'un dareka | no one (neg. +) personne daremo + neg. |- ! nonhuman | what que nani | something quelque chose nanika | nothing rien nanimo + neg. |- ! location | where où doko | somewhere quelque part dokoka | nowhere nulle part dokomo + neg. |}

(Note that "daremo", "nanimo" and "dokomo" are universal quantifiers with positive verbs.)

Some languages do not distinguish interrogative and indefinite pro-forms. In Mandarin, "''Shéi'' yǒu wèntí?" means either "''Who'' has a question?" or "Does ''anyone'' have a question?", depending on context.

==See also== * {{annotated link|Anaphora (linguistics)}} * {{annotated link|Deixis}} * {{annotated link|Pro-drop language}} * {{annotated link|Referent}}

==References== {{Reflist}}

==External links== *{{Wiktionary inline|Category:English pro-forms|pro-form}} *[https://glossary.sil.org/term/pro-adverb SIL Glossary of Linguistic Terms: Pro-Adverb]

{{DEFAULTSORT:Pro-Form}} Category:Parts of speech