A pro-sentence is a sentence where the subject pronoun has been dropped and therefore the sentence has a null subject.

Overview

Languages differ within this parameter, some languages such as

Italian Italian(s) may refer to: * Anything of, from, or related to the people of Italy over the centuries ** Italians, an ethnic group or simply a citizen of the Italian Republic or Italian Kingdom ** Italian language, a Romance language *** Regional Ita ...

and

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 ...

have constant

pro-drop A pro-drop language (from "pronoun-dropping") is a language where certain classes of pronouns may be omitted when they can be pragmatically or grammatically inferable. The precise conditions vary from language to language, and can be quite int ...

Finnish Finnish may refer to: * Something or someone from, or related to Finland * Culture of Finland * Finnish people or Finns, the primary ethnic group in Finland * Finnish language, the national language of the Finnish people * Finnish cuisine See also ...

and

Hebrew Hebrew (; ; ) is a Northwest Semitic language of the Afroasiatic language family. Historically, it is one of the spoken languages of the Israelites and their longest-surviving descendants, the Jews and Samaritans. It was largely preserved ...

for example are partial pro-drop languages and

Japanese Japanese may refer to: * Something from or related to Japan, an island country in East Asia * Japanese language, spoken mainly in Japan * Japanese people, the ethnic group that identifies with Japan through ancestry or culture ** Japanese diaspor ...

and

Tamil Tamil may refer to: * Tamils, an ethnic group native to India and some other parts of Asia **Sri Lankan Tamils, Tamil people native to Sri Lanka also called ilankai tamils **Tamil Malaysians, Tamil people native to Malaysia * Tamil language, nativ ...

fall into the category of discourse or radical pro-drop languages. There are also languages such as English, German and Swedish that only allow pro-drop within very strict stylistic conditions. A pro-sentence is a kind of

pro-form 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. They are used either to avoid rep ...

and is therefore anaphoric. In

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 ...

, ''yes'', ''no'' and ''

okay ''OK'' (spelling variations include ''okay'', ''O.K.'', ''ok'' and ''Ok'') is an English word (originating in American English) denoting approval, acceptance, agreement, assent, acknowledgment, or a sign of indifference. ''OK'' is frequently ...

'' are common pro-sentences. In response to the question "Does Mars have two moons?", the sentence "Yes" can be understood to abbreviate "Mars does have two moons." Pro-sentences are sometimes seen as grammatical

interjection An interjection is a word or expression that occurs as an utterance on its own and expresses a spontaneous feeling or reaction. It is a diverse category, encompassing many different parts of speech, such as exclamations ''(ouch!'', ''wow!''), curse ...

s, since they are capable of very limited syntactical relations. But they can also be classified as a distinct

part of speech In grammar, a part of speech or part-of-speech (abbreviated as POS or PoS, also known as word class or grammatical category) is a category of words (or, more generally, of lexical items) that have similar grammatical properties. Words that are as ...

, given that (other) interjections have meanings of their own and are often described as expressions of feelings or

emotion Emotions are mental states brought on by neurophysiology, neurophysiological changes, variously associated with thoughts, feelings, behavioral responses, and a degree of pleasure or suffering, displeasure. There is currently no scientific ...

Yes and no

In some languages, the equivalents to ''yes'' and ''no'' may substitute not only a whole sentence, but also a part of it, either the subject and the

verb A verb () is a word ( part of speech) that in syntax generally conveys an action (''bring'', ''read'', ''walk'', ''run'', ''learn''), an occurrence (''happen'', ''become''), or a state of being (''be'', ''exist'', ''stand''). In the usual descr ...

, or the verb and a

complement A complement is something that completes something else. Complement may refer specifically to: The arts * Complement (music), an interval that, when added to another, spans an octave ** Aggregate complementation, the separation of pitch-clas ...

, and can also constitute a subordinate clause. The

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 ...

word '' sim'' (''yes'') gives a good example: :Q: Ela está em casa? A: Acredito ''que sim''. — Q: Is she at home? A: I believe ''that she is'' (literally, ''that yes''). :Ela não saiu de casa, mas ''o John sim''. — She didn't leave home, but ''John did'' (literally, ''John yes''). In some languages, such as English, ''yes'' rebuts a negative question, whereas ''no'' affirms it. However, in

, the equivalents of ''no'' (''iie'', ''uun'', ''(i)ya'') rebut a negative question, whereas the equivalents of ''yes'' (''hai'', ''ee'', ''un'') affirm it. :Q: ''Wakarimasen deshita ka'' (''Did you not understand?'') :A: ''Hai, wakarimasen deshita'' (''No, I didn't'' — Literally ''That's right, I didn't understand'') Some languages have a specific word that rebuts a negative question.

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 ...

has ''" doch"''; French has ''" si"'';

Norwegian Norwegian, Norwayan, or Norsk may refer to: *Something of, from, or related to Norway, a country in northwestern Europe * Norwegians, both a nation and an ethnic group native to Norway * Demographics of Norway *The Norwegian language, including ...

Danish Danish may refer to: * Something of, from, or related to the country of Denmark People * A national or citizen of Denmark, also called a "Dane," see Demographics of Denmark * Culture of Denmark * Danish people or Danes, people with a Danish a ...

, and

Swedish Swedish or ' may refer to: Anything from or related to Sweden, a country in Northern Europe. Or, specifically: * Swedish language, a North Germanic language spoken primarily in Sweden and Finland ** Swedish alphabet, the official alphabet used by ...

have '' jo'', Hungarian has ''" de"''. The English words "yes" and "no" were originally only used to respond to negative questions, while "yea" and "nay" were the proper responses to affirmative questions; this distinction was lost at some time in Early Modern English. :Q: ''Bist du nicht müde?'' (''Aren't you tired?'') :A: ''Doch. Ich gehe bald schlafen.'' (''Yes. I'm about to go to sleep.'')

In philosophy

The prosentential theory of truth developed by Dorothy Grover,

Nuel Belnap Nuel Dinsmore Belnap Jr. (; born 1930) is an American logician and philosopher who has made contributions to the philosophy of logic, temporal logic, and structural proof theory. He taught at the University of Pittsburgh from 1963 until his reti ...

, and Joseph Camp, and defended more recently by

Robert Brandom Robert Boyce Brandom (born March 13, 1950) is an American philosopher who teaches at the University of Pittsburgh. He works primarily in philosophy of language, philosophy of mind and philosophical logic, and his academic output manifests both sys ...

, holds that sentences like ''"p" is true'' and ''It is true that p'' should not be understood as ascribing properties to the sentence "p", but as a pro-sentence whose content is the same as that of "p." Brandom calls " . . .is true" a pro-sentence-forming operator.Brandom, ''Making it Explicit'', 1994.

References

* Holmberg, A. 2001. 'The syntax of yes and no in Finnish.' ''Studia Linguistica'' 55: 141- 174. {{Lexical categories, state=collapsed Parts of speech