A dummy pronoun, also known as an expletive pronoun, is a pronoun that does not refer to anything, and exists only to satisfy a syntactic requirement.[1] For example, in the sentence "It rained" the English pronoun "it" is generally analyzed as a dummy pronoun, inserted to fill the subject position, but not referring to anything.
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 and ate " is a referential pronoun (referring to the sandwich).
Unlike a regular pronoun, dummy pronouns cannot be replaced by any noun phrase.[2]
Dummy pronouns are used in many languages across language families. Some of these families include Germanic languages, such as German and English,[3] Celtic languages, such as Welsh[4] and Irish,[5] and Volta-Niger languages, such as Ewe[6] and Esan.[7] Other common languages with dummy pronouns include French[8] and, colloquially, in Thai.[9] Pronoun-dropping languages such as Spanish, Portuguese, Chinese, and Turkish do not require dummy pronouns.[10]
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."[11] 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 "Shes going to rain."[12]
Although the weather it is frequently considered a dummy pronoun,[13] 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.[14] 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.[15] 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."[16] [17] This is also occasionally referred to as the anticipatory there.[18]
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.[19]
While the existential use of there has generally been analyzed as a subject,[20] 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.[21]
Other examples of semantically empty pronouns are found with raising verbs in "unraised" counterparts.[22] 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.)
Dummy it can also be found in extraposition constructions in English, a process known as it-extraposition.[23] 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.[23]
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.[24]
Dummy objects are sometimes used to transform transitive verbs to a transitive light verb form:[16] 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.
