Pro-Forms as Projective Devices in Interaction

Abstract

Cataphoric pronouns have been characterized as being co-referential with a word that comes later. Considering that talk is produced in real time, with little benefit of knowing what is yet to come, participants understand cataphoric pro-forms to be projecting more talk. Projection is a crucial interactive resource, as it enables speakers to align with the ongoing talk and to initiate subsequent contributions in a timely manner. The study looks at how Estonian pro-forms are systematically used to project either a word (phrase) or a clause in interaction. The patterns discussed are not universal and it will be suggested that projecting word (phrases) with pro-forms is a characteristic of a nonprepositional language with no articles, and that pro-form projection can be especially useful in a free word order language. As many pro-forms do not end up with a co-referential word, projection provides a better account of their function. The article underlines the necessity of studying grammar as a temporal phenomenon.

Notes

¹Grammaticalized conjunctions originally based in the pro-form format (sest et ‘therefore’ and nii et ‘so’) have been counted as “conjunctions.”

²Complementizers regularly occur after epistemic-evidential formats such as “I think.” Whether these are full-fledged clauses is debatable (Keevallik, 2008; Thompson, 2002). Nevertheless, they have been counted here to be as inclusive as possible.

³The pro-adverbs only occur in adessive (seal), illative (sinna), and ablative (sealt), whereas nouns appear in two sets of locative cases (i.e., also in inessive ‘in, within’, allative ‘to, at’, and elative ‘from’ (see Table 3); hence, the mismatch of ablative and elative in Example 4.

⁴The projection may occasionally be realized as a noun.

⁵Because there are more demonstratives in Finnish, one of them, tuo, has particularly specialized on the word search function (Helasvuo, Laakso, & Sorjonen, 2004, p. 14, referring to the personal communication with Marja Etelämäki).

⁶This usage does not have a straightforward counterpart in English, although sometimes closer translations are possible: “the kind of subscription that …,” “in such a way that …,” and “to such an extent that .…”