Talk:Pro-form

?Indefinites
What about "one"? For example in "I like the blue one". Isn't it a pro-form? If so, it should be mentioned in the article... -- Adam78 22:56, 15 August 2005 (UTC)
 * >For example in "I like the blue one". Isn't it a pro-form?
 * Yes, it is a demonstrative pronoun. Note that it is cognate to Middle English yon < Old English geon, while the numeral one < Middle English on < Old English ān (and Latin unus.) This merger is rather uncharacterisctic of modern IE languages, on top of my head cf. Russian odin = the numeral one, onyj (rather archaic) = the pronominal one.
 * >If so, it should be mentioned in the article...
 * Why? Its kin got their own article. :)
 * — [mailto:kkm@pobox.com kkm@pobox.com] 01:21, 25 March 2006 (UTC)

Thank you! Adam78 16:43, 25 March 2006 (UTC)

Spanish 3-way distinction
Hi there!

I've just read this: "Spanish and other Romance languages show this same three-way distinction, which dates back to Latin."

That last assertion sounds pretty wrong. In modern Spanish, there are indeed 3 forms of demonstratives:

(in singular)

[proximal] este,aquí [medial] ese,ahí [distal] aquel, allí/allá

However, they don't work the way that those in Japanese are described in the article. [note: I know almost nothing about Japanese, I base my comment on the very content of this article. On the other hand, I'm a native speaker of Spanish (from Spain).]

Firstly, the "medial" ones don't imply closeness to the _addressee_, and never have. Secondly, nowadays the distinction between medial and distal has largely disappeared. Both forms are still in use, but do not convey a meaning of such strong difference in distance. Medial ones are by far the most frequently used. Distal forms are kept in idioms and figures of speech.

So I intend to change the phrase to: "Spanish and other Romance languages show a similar three-way distinction, which dates back to Latin."

Any problem, let me know. Greets :) MasterMan 23:58, 24 April 2006 (UTC)

L. L. Zamenhof's Table
Shouldn't the word "both" go in the space for "Pronoun - Out of two" and "Universal"? It seems to me that "both" accurately fits those specifications. Also, is this Zamenhof's entire table? Is it even proper to edit a work of someone else's to add accuracy?

Thanks. mattmpg23 23:53, 1 August 2007 (UTC)


 * I think Zamenhof's correlatives actually are off-topic. Rursus dixit. ( m bork3 !) 21:36, 7 January 2011 (UTC)


 * I agree entirely. Esperanto is a constructed language; it's structural framework doesn't bear a reliable relationship to that of natural languages, and I'm not sure that forcing English to fit the format of the table really gives an accurate representation of the language, especially when it contains so many questionable forms (see below). It's useful giving examples of each of the categories - pronoun, pro-adjective, and so on - but this table is a misleading format in which to do so. Matt Keefe (talk) 10:03, 6 July 2013 (UTC)

pro-adjectives
Are determiners pro-adjectives? Are numerals pro-adjectives? Greg-si (talk) 17:23, 12 June 2008 (UTC)


 * I think no. A noun can be substituded for neither and still constitute a sentence that potentially mean the same thing. Compare the dogs ate ==> they ate, in contrast to the chess-players drank ale =/=> seven drank ale. Rursus dixit. ( m bork3 !) 21:41, 7 January 2011 (UTC)

Japanese has words that could be thought of as pro-adjectives, namely こんな (konna; proximal), そんな (sonna; medial), あんな (anna; distal). They can be translated as "like this/that/that over there" or "such a", e.g.,

こんな人 a person like this.

These words can only be used as a stand-in for attributive adjectives though. Quicksanddiver (talk) 10:49, 16 February 2024 (JST)

Relatives in English
Shouldn't there be a column for relative forms in English?


 * The elective column needs subdividing -- TimNelson (talk) 05:33, 23 January 2013 (UTC)

Odd forms
I note that some of the forms (eg. "yence") are not ones that I can find any examples of with Google (well, not with the meaning implied on this page). Could someone offer some references for these, or put a * before them to indicate that they're non-existent forms?

-- TimNelson (talk) 05:33, 23 January 2013 (UTC)


 * I can't find any evidence of many of these either, and some of the verifiable forms are wrongly described - yonder is not the plural of yon, it's simply another form. I think there are serious questions about the quality of this entire article.


 * I have found a reference to yence, yither, yen and yonderfore (along with yonder and yon) at http://ling.everywitchway.net/germanic/south/northeadish/appdx-3 - it has the English words in brackets. Rhdunn (talk) 15:55, 14 February 2014 (UTC)

Missing words in the Pro-form table
What's about some words like: "Whose" "Ever", or "Forever"???, I think they should be in the table too. Moreover, in the "pro-adverb" section (or elsewhere) there should be a section related to DETERMINERS OF AMOUNT (For both countable and uncountable nouns), For example: interrogative: How many/much, demostrative: that/this/these many, That/this/ much, Elective: any much/however much, etc... It would improve the table much better than it is now. Does someone have any suggestion? I will waiting for a response — Preceding unsigned comment added by Marioserghio (talk • contribs) 17:43, 13 July 2015 (UTC)

confusing examples
why are Greek, Latin and Sanskrit used as examples of interrogative and nonintervention pro-forms being split? they all are Indo-European languages, undercutting the point of the paragraph? 35.24.32.134 (talk) 01:59, 11 December 2015 (UTC)

pro-clause: which
Am I correct to say that this usage is a pro-clause?

B23Rich (talk) 16:31, 29 March 2018 (UTC)
 * She always forgets her keys, which frustrates me.
 * When I was seven, my best friend died, which caused me to be depressed.
 * I broke his trust, which made him hate me.

what is or is not a correlative
The set of "correlatives" shown here seems much broader than the definition in Correlative. Either that article or this one could do with some clarification. —Tamfang (talk) 02:49, 3 October 2023 (UTC)