Pro-form
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
A pro-form is a type of function word or expression that stands in for another (expresses the same content as) a word, phrase, clause, or sentence whose meaning is recoverable from the context. They are used to avoid repetitive expressions and in quantification.
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 pro-adjective substitutes an adjective or a phrase functioning as an adjective: like that.
- A pro-adverb substitutes an adverb or a phrase functioning as an adverb: how or this way.
- A pro-verb substitutes a verb or a verb phrase: do.
- A pro-sentence substitutes an entire sentence or subsentence: Yes or (some have argued) That is true.
An interrogative pro-form is a pro-form denoting the (unknown) item questioned in a question, and may itself fall into any of the above categories.
One of the most salient features of many modern Indo-European languages is that relative pro-forms and interrogative pro-forms, as well as demonstrative pro-forms in some languages, have identical forms. Consider the two different functions of who in "Who's the criminal who did this?" or the meanings of that in "That's the movie that you saw back home."
Most other language families do not have this ambiguity, nor do several ancient Indo-European languages. For example, both Latin and Ancient Greek distinguish the relative pro-forms from the interrogative pro-forms.
[edit] Table of correlatives
L. L. Zamenhof, the inventor of Esperanto, called a table of systematic interrogative, demonstrative, and quantifier pro-forms and determiners in a language a table of correlatives. The table of correlatives for English follows. Note that while some categories are highly irregular, others (like quantifiers) are not.
| interrogative | demonstrative | quantifier | ||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| proximal | distal | indefinite | universal | negative | ||||
| exclusive | inclusive | |||||||
| determiner | which what |
this (sg.) these (pl.) |
that (sg.) those (pl.) |
some | any whichever whichsoever |
every | no | |
| pronoun | human | who whom |
this (sg.) these (pl.) |
that (sg.) those (pl.) |
someone somebody |
anyone anybody whoever whomever whosoever whomsoever |
everyone everybody |
no one nobody |
| nonhuman | what | this (sg.) these (pl.) |
that (sg.) those (pl.) |
something | anything whatever whatsoever |
everything | nothing | |
| pro-adverb | location | where | here | there | somewhere | anywhere wherever wheresoever |
everywhere | nowhere |
| source | whence wherefrom |
hence | thence thencefrom |
whenceever whencesoever |
nowhence | |||
| goal | whither whereto whereinto whereunto |
hither | thither | somewhither | anywhither whithersoever |
nowhither | ||
| time | when | now | then | sometime | anytime whenever whensoever |
always everywhen |
never | |
| manner | how whereby |
thus hereby |
thereby | somehow | anyhow however howsoever |
no wise nohow (col.) |
||
| reason | why wherefore |
therefore | ||||||
Some languages may have more categories. For example, while English demonstratives only distinguish proximal (close to the speaker: this, here) and distal (far from the speaker: that, there), Japanese makes a three-way distinction between proximal (close to the speaker: kore, koko), medial (close to the addressee: sore, soko), and distal (far from both: are, asoko). Early Modern English made a similar distinction between this/here, that/there, and yon/yonder. Spanish and other Romance languages show a similar three-way distinction, which dates back to Latin.
