Dummy Pronouns
A dummy pronoun is a type of pronoun used in non-pro-drop languages, such as English. It is used when a particular verb argument is nonexistent, but when a reference to the argument (a pronoun) is nevertheless syntactically required.
In languages with a neuter gender, the neuter gender is usually used: in German: Es regnet, means literally "It rains." (In fact, the English word 'it' comes from the Old English neuter gender). In languages with only a masculine and a feminine gender, the dummy pronoun, is usually the masculine third person singular. For example, in French Il pleut, literally means "He rains." But there are exceptions: the corresponding sentence in Welsh is Mae hi'n bwrw glaw, "She's raining."
Read more about this topic: Grammatical Gender, Gender Inflection
Famous quotes containing the words dummy and/or pronouns:
“Fathers and Sons is not only the best of Turgenev’s novels, it is one of the most brilliant novels of the nineteenth century. Turgenev managed to do what he intended to do, to create a male character, a young Russian, who would affirm his—that character’s—absence of introspection and at the same time would not be a journalist’s dummy of the socialistic type.”
—Vladimir Nabokov (1899–1977)
“In the meantime no sense in bickering about pronouns and other parts of blather.”
—Samuel Beckett (1906–1989)