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Pro-form

Word or form that substitutes for another word

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 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".

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, 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.

interrogative	demonstrative	quantifier	proximal	medial	distal	assertive
existential	elective/dubitative
existential	universal	negatory	positive
alternative	determiner	pronoun	human	nonhuman	out of two
(dual)	out of many
(plural)	pro-adverb	location	source	goal	time	manner	reason
which
what	this (sg.)
these (pl.)	that (sg.)
those (pl.)	yon
yonder	some	any
whichever
whichsoever	every
each
all	no	another
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
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
which	this one (sg.)
these (ones) (pl.)	that one (sg.)
those (ones) (pl.)	yon
yonder	one	either
whichever
whichsoever	both	neither	other
some (pl.)
one (sg.)	any
whichever
whichsoever	each
all	none	another
where	here	there	yonder	somewhere	anywhere
wherever
wheresoever	everywhere	nowhere	elsewhere
whence	hence	thence		somewhence	anywhence
whencever
whencesoever	everywhence	nowhence	elsewhence
whither	hither	thither		somewhither	anywhither
whitherever
whithersoever	everywhither	nowhither	elsewhither
when	now	then		sometime
somewhen	anytime
anywhen
whenever
whensoever	ever
always
everywhen	never
nowhen	another time
elsewhen
how
whereby	so
hereby	thus
thereby		somehow	anyhow
however
howsoever	everyway	no way	otherwise
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):

	interrogative	quantifier	existential	negative	human	nonhuman	location
who
qui
dare	someone
quelqu'un
dareka	no one
(neg. +) personne
daremo + neg.
what
que
nani	something
quelque chose
nanika	nothing
rien
nanimo + neg.
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.

References

(1985). "A dictionary of linguistics and phonetics". Basil Blackwell.
Rödl, Sebastian. (2012). "Categories of the Temporal". Harvard University Press.
(1844). "Elementargrammatik der lateinischen Sprache mit eingereihten lateinischen und deutschen Übersetzungsaufgaben und einer Sammlung lateinischer Lesestücke nebst den dazu gehörigen Wörterverzeichnissen".

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