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Indeterminate pronoun
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An indeterminate pronoun is a pronoun which can show a variety of readings depending on the type of sentence it occurs in. The term "indeterminate pronoun" originates in Kuroda's (1965) thesis and is typically used in reference to wh-indeterminates, which are pronouns which function as an interrogative pronoun in questions, yet come to have additional meanings with other grammatical operators.[1][2][3][4] For example, in Japanese, dare means 'who' in a constituent question like (1) formed with the question-forming operator no:
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(1) dare-ga who-NOM hashitta run.PST no? Q 'Who ran?' |
However, in a statement (2), in combination with the particle ka, dare 'who' acquires an existential 'someone' meaning:
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(2) dare-ka-ga who-PTCL-NOM hashitta run.PST 'Someone ran' |
With yet another particle -mo, dare 'who' expresses a universal meaning as in (3):[5]
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(3) dare-mo who-PTCL wakaru understand.PRES 'Everyone understands' |
Languages with wh-indeterminates are typologically very common,[3][6] and this is a characteristic of many language families such as Uralic, Turkic, Dravidian, and the Slavic sub-branch of Indo-European.[7] The syntactic and semantic properties of indeterminate pronouns and their interactions with different grammatical operators is a major topic within the study of the syntax-semantics interface.[8][9]
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