Re: THEORY: NATLANGS: Pro-Forms

On Wed, 24 May 2006 19:24:59 +0200, Philip Newton <philip.newton@...>
wrote:

>On 5/24/06, Kit La Touche <kit@...> wrote:
>> as the purpose of proforms *seems* to be to
>> allow grammatical sentences that don't repeat all the common ground,
>> and adjectives are essentially optional, it would be of small use:
>> consider, talking about 'the red dog', would you say 'the pro-adj
>> dog' or just 'the dog'?
>
>In that sentence, yes.
>
>But consider something like "Bob has a big shaggy red-haired dog and
>Bill has [one like that], too", where you might like to repeat the
>adjective without mentioning it explicitly.
>
>"Like that" is sort of a pro-adverb in English, for example -- "I
>always write my sentences from left to right, and my little sister
>writes them _like that_, too."
"Like that" can also be a pro-adjective, then.

Thanks to everyone who wrote in.
I actually already knew, thanks to the wikipedia article, of at least one
auxlang (Esperanto) with several pro-adverbs; and the English translations
make me strongly suspect that at least one natlang (English) has several,
too.

where here there somewhere anywhere wherever wheresoever everywhere nowhere
whence wherefrom hence thence thencefrom whenceever whencesoever nowhence
whither whereto whereinto whereunto hither thither somewhither anywhither
whithersoever nowhither when now then sometime anytime whenever whensoever
always everywhen never how whereby thus hereby thereby somehow anyhow
however howsoever nohow why wherefore therefore

While many of these are questionable, many others are _not_ questionable.

So here's a few USAGE: questions (YAEUT):

Does anybody besides me _ever_ use "somewhen" and/or "somewhy"?

Granted, perhaps, "sometime" _might_ almost substitute for "somewhen"; but
is there a reasonable substitute for "somewhy" that is anywhere near as
economical?

Or what about "anywhen" or "anywhy"?

Again, "anytime" can usually almost substitute for "anywhen", but "anywhy"
has no good substitute AFAICT -- not that I use it myself, as I
do "somewhy".

And aren't "somewho", "anywho", "everywho", "nowho" a little odd, at least?

Are "somebody, someone, anybody, anyone, everybody, everyone, nobody,
noone" good substitutes for these?

How about "anywhat", "everywhat", and "nowhat"?

Are "anything", "everything", "nothing" good substitutes for these?

Because "somewhat" does _not_ mean "something", does it?

And then there are
anyhow anywhat anywhen anywhere anywho anywhy
everyhow everywhat everywhen everywhere everywho everywhy
nohow nowhat nowhen nowhere nowho nowhy
somehow somewhat somewhen somewhere somewho somewhy

"Anyhow, anywhere, everywhere, nohow(?), nowhere, somehow, somehat,
somewhere" are all OK.
"Anywhat, anywhen, anywho, anywhy, everywhat, everywho, nowhat, nowho,
somewhen, somewho, somewhy" I have already asked about.
That leaves "everyhow, everywhen, everywhy, nowhen, nowhy". So how about
them?

And how about "however, whatever, whenever, wherever, whoever, whyever"?
The first five are acceptable; but is "whyever"?

-----

eldin

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