Questions tagged [pro-forms]

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8 votes
2 answers
227 views

How can you establish that a word is a proform?

A pro-form is a word, substituting for other words, phrases, clauses, or sentences, whose meaning is recoverable from the linguistic or extralinguistic context. But how do you establish a word as a ...
0 votes
2 answers
334 views

How do pro-forms get their meaning?

How do pro-forms get their meaning? For example, does the word 'he' in the sentences Harry got a toy. He was happy. get it's meaning from the context, or what the speaker meant by "he"?
6 votes
3 answers
219 views

Do all pro-forms need to have antecedents?

Are all pro-forms the same in that they have to have antecedents and postcedents in the conversation to have any meaning? For example, the word "it" derives its meaning from a noun located either just ...
3 votes
2 answers
243 views

Propositional pro-forms like "so" English?

I'm looking for examples of dedicated embedding pro-forms for propositions in other languages. In particular, I'm curious to know about analogs to uses of so in English like the following: I think so....