dummy pronoun

One of the most common uses of dummy pronouns is with weather verbs, such as in the phrases "it is snowing" or "it is hot."{{cite journal |last1=Eriksen |first1=Pål Kristian |last2=Kittilä |first2=Seppo |last3=Kolehmainen |first3=Leena |title=The linguistics of weather: Cross-linguistic patterns of meteorological expressions |journal=Studies in Language. International Journal sponsored by the Foundation “Foundations of Language” |date=1 January 2010 |volume=34 |issue=3 |pages=565–601 |doi=10.1075/sl.34.3.03eri}} In these sentences, the verb (to snow, to rain, etc.) is usually considered semantically impersonal even though it appears syntactically intransitive; in this view, the required it in "it is snowing" is a dummy word that does not refer. In English literature, there is also marginal use of the feminine she, such as in the phrase "She{{'}}s going to rain."{{cite journal |last1=Gardelle |first1=Laure |title=Let her rain, she’s snowing pretty good: The use of feminine pronouns with weather verbs in colloquial English |journal=Folia Linguistica |date=1 January 2015 |volume=49 |issue=2 |doi=10.1515/flin-2015-0013}}

Although the weather it is frequently considered a dummy pronoun,{{cite journal |last1=Krejci |first1=Bonnie |title=What is Raining? English Weather "it" Revisited |journal=LSA Annual Meeting Extended Abstracts |date=16 October 2014 |doi=10.3765/exabs.v0i0.2405|doi-access=free }} there have been a few objections to this interpretation. Noam Chomsky has argued that the it employed as the subject of English weather verbs can control the subject of an adjunct clause, just like a "normal" subject.{{cite book |last1=Chomsky |first1=Noam |title=Lectures on Government and Binding: The Pisa Lectures |date=14 December 2010 |publisher=De Gruyter Mouton |isbn=978-3-11-088416-6 |url=https://doi.org/10.1515/9783110884166 |language=en}} 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" and not a dummy word.

Some linguists such as D. L. Bolinger go further, claiming that the "weather it" simply refers to a general state of affairs in the context of the utterance.{{cite book |last1=Bolinger |first1=Dwight |title=Meaning and form |date=1983 |publisher=Longman |location=London |isbn=9780582551039 |edition=3. impr}} 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".

Another common use of dummy pronouns in English is the use of there in existential clauses, such as in the phrase "there are polar bears in Norway."{{cite web |title="Dummy Pronouns" in English Grammar |url=https://langeek.co/en/grammar/course/7/dummy-pronouns |website=Langeek |language=en}}{{cite journal |last1=Breivik |first1=Leiv Egil |title=On the Interpretation of Existential There |journal=Language |date=March 1981 |volume=57 |issue=1 |pages=1 |doi=10.2307/414284}} This is also occasionally referred to as the anticipatory there.{{cite web |title="There" as Subject: Existential There |url=https://editorsmanual.com/articles/existential-there-sentence-structure/ |website=The Editor’s Manual |date=9 November 2020}}

This should be distinguished from the locative there, as in "I saw a polar bear over there." This use of there acts as a locative adverb rather than a subject.{{cite web |title=Definition of THERE |url=https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/there |website=www.merriam-webster.com |language=en |date=16 January 2025}}

While the existential use of there has generally been analyzed as a subject,{{cite book |last1=Wang |first1=Yong |title=A typological study of the existential clause: a functional linguistics perspective |date=2025 |publisher=Routledge |location=Abingdon, Oxon ; New York, NY |isbn=9781032794730}} it has been proposed that elements like expletive there in existential sentences and pro-forms in inverse copular sentences play the role of dummy predicate rather than dummy subject, so that the postverbal noun phrase would rather be the embedded subject of the sentence.{{cite book |last1=Moro |first1=Andrea |title=The raising of predicates: predicative noun phrases and the theory of clause structure |date=1997 |publisher=Cambridge University Press |location=Cambridge |isbn=9780511519956}}

{{Expand section|date=June 2008}}

Other examples of semantically empty pronouns are found with raising verbs in "unraised" counterparts.{{cite book |last1=Radford |first1=Andrew |title=Syntactic Theory and the Structure of English |date=1997 |publisher=Cambridge University Press |location=West Nyack |isbn=9781139166706 |edition=1st}} For example:

:It seems that John loves coffee. (Corresponding "raised" sentence: John seems to love coffee.)

:There is a bird flying outside. (Corresponding "raised" sentence: A bird is flying outside.)

{{Expand section|date=June 2008}}

Dummy it can also be found in extraposition constructions in English, a process known as it-extraposition.{{cite journal |last1=Kaltenböck |first1=Gunther |title=It-extraposition in English: A functional view |journal=International Journal of Corpus Linguistics |date=14 June 2005 |volume=10 |issue=2 |pages=119–159 |doi=10.1075/ijcl.10.2.02kal}} For example:

:It is fun living in Paris. (Corresponding non-extraposed sentence: Living in Paris is fun.)

At least in English, it-extraposition appears much more frequently than non-extraposition.

In English, dummy object pronouns tend to serve an ad hoc function, applying with less regularity than dummy subjects, though use of the dummy object can be traced at least as far back as the early sixteenth century.{{cite journal |last1=Mondorf |first1=Britta |title="Snake legs it to freedom": Dummy it as pseudo-object" |journal=Corpus Linguistics and Linguistic Theory |date=1 January 2016 |volume=12 |issue=1 |doi=10.1515/cllt-2015-0071}}

Dummy objects are sometimes used to transform transitive verbs to a transitive light verb form: e.g., do → do it, "to engage in sexual intercourse"; 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, and even though it took them a while to make it, he did get some French fries with it.

• Impersonal verb
• Null-subject language

{{Reflist}}

• 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.
• Graffi, G. 2001 200 Years of Syntax. A critical survey, John Benjamins, Amsterdam, the Netherlands.

{{lexical categories|state=collapsed}}

{{DEFAULTSORT:Dummy Pronoun}}

Category:Pronouns

Category:Transitivity and valency