Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Syntactic expletive


 * The following discussion is an archived debate of the proposed deletion of the article below. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as the article's talk page or in a deletion review).  No further edits should be made to this page.

The result was delete. Perhaps a redirect to expletive is advisable, but I leave that to editors that are more knowledgeable in this area than me. Randykitty (talk) 13:59, 11 January 2022 (UTC)

Syntactic expletive

 * – ( View AfD View log | edits since nomination)

This article is an unnecessary content-fork of Expletive which already has a sub-section on Syntactic expletives. The article was, in fact, created by de-merging/copying from Expletive, but the de-merger hasn't worked out well. Instead of expanding with useful sourced detail, it's become a mishmash of what a few editors on the talk page have referred to as original research, and a vast array of examples taken from Swedish (why Swedish??). The referencing is extremely sparse, with all the content being in the lead, and supported by one dictionary, one linguistics text and one very, very primary source. I have no doubt that secondary sources could be found, but I think the subject isn't notable enough to need its own article outside Expletive (and hasn't improved on Expletive since the 2011 de-merger). I would consider suggesting a re-merge, but I can't see anything in the new article that is worth merging back. But I'm open to a merge or to moving this discussion to mergers if that's considered the best option. I haven't used PROD because the article has been adopted by some editors as a project for a linguistics course, so I think deletion is potentially controversial. However, the student concerned posted on the talk page that the edits would be completed by 20th Dec, and today's the 19th, so unless there's a flurry of editing today, the article hasn't benefited. Elemimele (talk) 11:51, 19 December 2021 (UTC)
 * Delete: The article's shortcomings are too numerous to mention. --Kent Dominic·(talk)
 * Comment on the history: I created Syntactic expletive in 2011 by splitting apart an article called "Expletive" that existed at that time. The current article Expletive was created via articles for creation in 2018. If memory serves, I think the other content from 2011's "Expletive" went to Expletive attributive, and perhaps a bit of stuff to Profanity. I can't really speak to the current state of any of those articles. Cnilep (talk) 07:58, 20 December 2021 (UTC)
 * Thanks for the explanation, . My feeling is that the article has drifted in a bad direction since you created it, and it looks like it's been superseded by the 2018 expletive. Elemimele (talk) 09:51, 20 December 2021 (UTC)


 * , I truly appreciate the concept of a syntactic expletive, and I don't fault your interest in trying to describe it, but I think the article was doomed from square one on 04 Nov 2011. Main reasons: (1) It was and still is OR, and (2) Expletive, not syntactic expletive, already has dibs on the (EXPL) abbreviation. Secondary reason: I'm unconvinced by the premise that a syntactic expletive "contributes nothing to the semantic meaning of a sentence." Such an assertion constitutes an ipse dixit disproven in the article itself with the explanations of what "it" constitutes in the "It is important..." example. IMHO, the stab at syntactic expletive seems to duplicate what dummy pronoun is supposed to entail. Nonetheless, I don't think the dummy pronoun article's third ¶ does justice to the notion that "A dummy pronoun is a deictic pronoun that fulfills a syntactical requirement without providing a contextually explicit meaning of its referent. As such, it is an example of exophora." Long story short: Delete the syntactic expletive article and merge with dummy pronoun despite how I shun both terms in my own writing. --Kent Dominic·(talk) 17:01, 20 December 2021 (UTC)

Please add new comments below this notice. Thanks, North America1000 18:47, 26 December 2021 (UTC)
 * As a follow-up, 's recent edits, despite their formatting errors, fairly well demonstrate further reasons that I think a syntactic expletive is neither a true expletive nor non-contributory to the semantic sense of a sentence. --Kent Dominic·(talk) 17:11, 20 December 2021 (UTC)
 *  Relisted to generate a more thorough discussion and clearer consensus.

Please add new comments below this notice. Thanks, ✗  plicit  23:44, 2 January 2022 (UTC)
 * Note: This discussion has been included in the list of Language-related deletion discussions. Cnilep (talk) 04:01, 27 December 2021 (UTC)
 *  Relisted to generate a more thorough discussion and clearer consensus.


 * Delete per Kent Dominic's points. Rubbish computer Ping me or leave a message on my talk page 13:30, 9 January 2022 (UTC)


 * The above discussion is preserved as an archive of the debate. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as the article's talk page or in a deletion review). No further edits should be made to this page.