A dummy pronoun is a
deictic
In linguistics, deixis (, ) is the use of general words and phrases to refer to a specific time, place, or person in context, e.g., the words ''tomorrow'', ''there'', and ''they''. Words are deictic if their semantic meaning is fixed but their de ...
pronoun
In linguistics and grammar, a pronoun (abbreviated ) is a word or a group of words that one may substitute for a noun or noun phrase.
Pronouns have traditionally been regarded as one of the parts of speech, but some modern theorists would not co ...
that fulfills a
syntactical requirement without providing a contextually explicit
meaning of its
referent
A referent () is a person or thing to which a name – a linguistic expression or other symbol – refers. For example, in the sentence ''Mary saw me'', the referent of the word ''Mary'' is the particular person called Mary who is being spoken of, ...
.
As such, it is an example of
exophora
In pragmatics, exophora is reference to something extratextual, i.e. not in the immediate text, and contrasts with endophora. Exophora can be deictic, in which special words or grammatical markings are used to make reference to something in the con ...
.
Dummy pronouns are used in many
Germanic languages
The Germanic languages are a branch of the Indo-European language family spoken natively by a population of about 515 million people mainly in Europe, North America, Oceania and Southern Africa. The most widely spoken Germanic language, Engli ...
, including
German
German(s) may refer to:
* Germany (of or related to)
** Germania (historical use)
* Germans, citizens of Germany, people of German ancestry, or native speakers of the German language
** For citizens of Germany, see also German nationality law
**Ge ...
and
English
English usually refers to:
* English language
* English people
English may also refer to:
Peoples, culture, and language
* ''English'', an adjective for something of, from, or related to England
** English national ide ...
.
Pronoun-dropping languages such as
Spanish
Spanish might refer to:
* Items from or related to Spain:
**Spaniards are a nation and ethnic group indigenous to Spain
**Spanish language, spoken in Spain and many Latin American countries
**Spanish cuisine
Other places
* Spanish, Ontario, Can ...
,
Portuguese
Portuguese may refer to:
* anything of, from, or related to the country and nation of Portugal
** Portuguese cuisine, traditional foods
** Portuguese language, a Romance language
*** Portuguese dialects, variants of the Portuguese language
** Portu ...
,
Chinese
Chinese can refer to:
* Something related to China
* Chinese people, people of Chinese nationality, citizenship, and/or ethnicity
**''Zhonghua minzu'', the supra-ethnic concept of the Chinese nation
** List of ethnic groups in China, people of ...
, and
Turkish do not require dummy pronouns.
A dummy pronoun is used when a particular
verb argument
In linguistics, an argument is an expression that helps complete the meaning of a predicate, the latter referring in this context to a main verb and its auxiliaries. In this regard, the '' complement'' is a closely related concept. Most predicates ...
(or
preposition
Prepositions and postpositions, together called adpositions (or broadly, in traditional grammar, simply prepositions), are a class of words used to express spatial or temporal relations (''in'', ''under'', ''towards'', ''before'') or mark various ...
) is nonexistent (it could also be unknown, irrelevant, already understood, or otherwise "not to be spoken of directly") but when a reference to the argument (a pronoun) is nevertheless
syntactically required. For example, in the phrase "It is obvious that the violence will continue", ''it'' is a dummy pronoun, not referring to any
agent
Agent may refer to:
Espionage, investigation, and law
*, spies or intelligence officers
* Law of agency, laws involving a person authorized to act on behalf of another
** Agent of record, a person with a contractual agreement with an insuranc ...
. Unlike a regular
pronoun of English, it cannot be replaced by any
noun phrase
In linguistics, a noun phrase, or nominal (phrase), is a phrase that has a noun or pronoun as its head or performs the same grammatical function as a noun. Noun phrases are very common cross-linguistically, and they may be the most frequently oc ...
.
The term ''dummy pronoun'' refers to the function of a word in a particular sentence, not a property of individual words. For example, ''it'' in the example from the previous paragraph is a dummy pronoun, but ''it'' in the sentence "I bought a
sandwich
A sandwich is a food typically consisting of vegetables, sliced cheese or meat, placed on or between slices of bread, or more generally any dish wherein bread serves as a container or wrapper for another food type. The sandwich began as a po ...
and ate it" is a referential pronoun (referring to the sandwich).
Dummy subjects
Weather ''it''
In the phrase "it is raining—", the verb ''to rain'' is usually considered
semantically
Semantics (from grc, σημαντικός ''sēmantikós'', "significant") is the study of reference, meaning, or truth. The term can be used to refer to subfields of several distinct disciplines, including philosophy, linguistics and comput ...
impersonal, even though it appears as syntactically
intransitive
In grammar, an intransitive verb is a verb whose context does not entail a direct object. That lack of transitivity distinguishes intransitive verbs from transitive verbs, which entail one or more objects. Additionally, intransitive verbs are ...
; in this view, the required ''it'' is to be considered a dummy word.
Other views
However, there have been a few objections to this interpretation.
Noam Chomsky
Avram Noam Chomsky (born December 7, 1928) is an American public intellectual: a linguist, philosopher, cognitive scientist, historian, social critic, and political activist. Sometimes called "the father of modern linguistics", Chomsky is ...
has argued that the ''it'' employed as the
subject of English
weather verb
In linguistics, an impersonal verb is one that has no determinate subject. For example, in the sentence "''It rains''", ''rain'' is an impersonal verb and the pronoun ''it'' does not refer to anything. In many languages the verb takes a third per ...
s can control the subject of an
adjunct clause, just like a "normal" subject. For example, compare:
:''She brushes her teeth before having a bath.''
::→ ''She brushes her teeth before she has a bath.''
:''It sometimes rains after snowing.''
::→ ''It sometimes rains after it snows''.
If this analysis is accepted, then the "weather ''it''" is to be considered a "quasi-(verb)
argument
An argument is a statement or group of statements called premises intended to determine the degree of truth or acceptability of another statement called conclusion. Arguments can be studied from three main perspectives: the logical, the dialectic ...
" and not a dummy word.
Some
linguist
Linguistics is the scientific study of human language. It is called a scientific study because it entails a comprehensive, systematic, objective, and precise analysis of all aspects of language, particularly its nature and structure. Linguis ...
s such as
D. L. Bolinger go even further, claiming that the "weather ''it''" simply refers to a general state of affairs in the context of the utterance. In this case, it would not be a dummy word at all. Possible evidence for this claim includes exchanges such as:
:''"Was it nice (out) yesterday?"''
:''"No, it rained."''
where ''it'' is implied to mean "the local weather".
Raising verbs
Other examples of semantically empty ''it'' are found with
raising
Raising may refer to:
*Raising (linguistics), a syntactic construction
*Raising (phonetics), a sound change
*Raising (metalworking), a metalworking technique
*Barn raising, a community event to erect the wooden framework for a building
*Fundraising ...
verbs in "unraised" counterparts. For example:
:''It seems that John loves
coffee
Coffee is a drink prepared from roasted coffee beans. Darkly colored, bitter, and slightly acidic, coffee has a stimulant, stimulating effect on humans, primarily due to its caffeine content. It is the most popular hot drink in the world.
S ...
.'' (Corresponding "raised" sentence: ''John seems to love coffee.'')
Extraposition
Dummy ''it'' can also be found in
extraposition
Extraposition is a mechanism of syntax that alters word order in such a manner that a relatively "heavy" constituent appears to the right of its canonical position. Extraposing a constituent results in a discontinuity and in this regard, it is ...
constructions in English, such as the following:
:''It was known to all the class''
'that the boy failed his test'''.''
Dummy objects
In English, dummy
object
Object may refer to:
General meanings
* Object (philosophy), a thing, being, or concept
** Object (abstract), an object which does not exist at any particular time or place
** Physical object, an identifiable collection of matter
* Goal, an ...
pronouns tend to serve an ''
ad hoc
Ad hoc is a Latin phrase meaning literally 'to this'. In English, it typically signifies a solution for a specific purpose, problem, or task rather than a generalized solution adaptable to collateral instances. (Compare with ''a priori''.)
Com ...
'' function, applying with less regularity than dummy subjects. Dummy objects are sometimes used to transform
transitive verbs to a
transitive light verb
In linguistics, a light verb is a verb that has little semantic content of its own and forms a predicate with some additional expression, which is usually a noun. Common verbs in English that can function as light verbs are ''do'', ''give'', ''have ...
form: e.g., ''do'' → ''do it'', "to engage in
sexual intercourse
Sexual intercourse (or coitus or copulation) is a sexual activity typically involving the insertion and thrusting of the penis into the vagina for sexual pleasure or reproduction.Sexual intercourse most commonly means penile–vaginal penetrat ...
"; ''make'' → ''
make it'', "to achieve success"; ''get'' → ''
get it'', "to comprehend".
Prepositional objects are similar: e.g., ''
with it'', "up to date"; ''
out of it'', "dazed" or "not thinking". All of these phrases, of course, can also be taken literally. For instance:
:He ordered a
cheeseburger
A cheeseburger is a hamburger topped with cheese. Traditionally, the slice of cheese is placed on top of the meat patty. The cheese is usually added to the cooking hamburger patty shortly before serving, which allows the cheese to melt. Cheese ...
, and even though it took them a while to make it, he did get some
French fries
French fries (North American English), chips (British English), finger chips ( Indian English), french-fried potatoes, or simply fries, are '' batonnet'' or ''allumette''-cut deep-fried potatoes of disputed origin from Belgium and France. Th ...
with it.
Dummy predicates
It has been proposed that elements like expletive ''there'' in
existential sentences
An existential clause is a clause that refers to the existence or presence of something, such as "There is a God" and "There are boys in the yard". The use of such clauses can be considered analogous to existential quantification in predicate l ...
and ''pro''-''forms'' in inverse
copular sentences play the role of dummy predicate rather than dummy subject, so that the postverbal
noun phrase
In linguistics, a noun phrase, or nominal (phrase), is a phrase that has a noun or pronoun as its head or performs the same grammatical function as a noun. Noun phrases are very common cross-linguistically, and they may be the most frequently oc ...
would rather be the embedded subject of the
sentence.
See also
*
Impersonal verb
In linguistics, an impersonal verb is one that has no determinate subject. For example, in the sentence "''It rains''", ''rain'' is an impersonal verb and the pronoun ''it'' does not refer to anything. In many languages the verb takes a third per ...
*
Null subject language
In linguistic typology, a null-subject language is a language whose grammar permits an independent clause to lack an explicit subject; such a clause is then said to have a null subject.
In the principles and parameters framework, the null su ...
References
*Everaert, M. - van Riemsdijk, H - Goedemans, R. (eds) 2006 The Blackwell Companion to Syntax, Volumes I-V, Blackwell, London: see "existential sentences and expletive there" in Volume II.
*
Chomsky, Noam
Avram Noam Chomsky (born December 7, 1928) is an American public intellectual: a linguist, philosopher, cognitive scientist, historian, social critic, and political activist. Sometimes called "the father of modern linguistics", Chomsky is ...
(1981)
Lectures on Government and Binding
''Lectures on Government and Binding: The Pisa Lectures'' (''LGB'') is a book by the linguist Noam Chomsky, published in 1981. It is based on the lectures Chomsky gave at the GLOW conference and workshop held at the Scuola Normale Superiore in Pi ...
. Dordrecht: Foris., cited in http://www.ling.helsinki.fi/sky/julkaisut/SKY2004/Alba-Salas.pdf.
*
Bolinger, D. L. (1977). Meaning and form. English Language Series, 11. London: Longman.
* Graffi, G. 2001 200 Years of Syntax. A critical survey, John Benjamins, Amsterdam, The Netherlands.
*
Moro, A. 1997 The raising of predicates. Predicative noun phrases and the theory of clause structure, Cambridge Studies in Linguistics, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, England.
{{DEFAULTSORT:Dummy Pronoun
Pronouns
Transitivity and valency