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Many languages have a little subsystem that uses a combination of particles of no*, some*, any*, every* or similar to create related question and negation words.

This is what the system roughly looks like this in English:

With complete sets like:

nothing, anything, something, everything

noone, anyone, someone, everyone

nowhere, anywhere, somewhere, everywhere

And incomplete sets like:

nohow, anyhow, somehow

never, any time, sometimes, every time

This looks very similar cross linguistically, although, some sets that are incomplete in one language are complete in another. E.g. Czech:

nikdy (lit. nowhen), někdy (lit. somewhen)

However, because the actual words that compose this subsystem fall across word classes (pronouns, adverbs, adjectives) and functions (e.g. negation vs. positive statements vs. indeterminate statements). I couldn't find any grammar (outside some learner grammars) that actually treats this as a subsystem.

Does anybody know of any studies and/or grammars of this subsystem in any language (or better still across languages). It's hard to research because there is no one term that I could find that covers all of these words. Yet, they are clearly related - I'm afraid I'm missing something obvious but I've been looking for a while.

Dominik Lukes
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  • You conclude: "Yet, they are clearly related ..." But why do you think that? It seems to me that what they have in common is that it is relatively easy for us to understand their relationship to one another. But that is a fact about us and what we understand -- not a fact about them. – Greg Lee Nov 06 '15 at 20:21
  • Good question. But, of course, it is a point you can make about any bit of grammar. Just because we can see a regularity, it does not mean that it represents some underlying generative linguistic essence. In a way, it goes to the heart of what motivates my question. I come at it from the 'constructional perspective' which is not seeking a relatedness deeper than a clear set of surface analogies that are moderately productive and work in a different but comparable way across languages. I would take the same approach to tense and aspect or case. This is just a nice small example. – Dominik Lukes Nov 06 '15 at 21:20
  • @Dominik: If you can describe a regularity so that somebody else can see it, you have something. You say "or similar" after the list of words. All of the words are quantifiers, some enhanced with contractions or inflections. Should we expect the "similar" to be quantifiers, too? – jlawler Nov 06 '15 at 21:24
  • @jlawler I find it hard to think of 'somehow/anyhow' as a quantifier since it clearly refers to quality. Or even 'somewhere' which has more of a referential property similar to a pronoun but clearly not a pronoun. In Czech, the system is even more elaborate including things like 'kdekdo/kdeco/kdejak/kdejaký' (where+who/what/how/what kind = just about anyone/anything/any way/any kind) and kdokoli/cokoli (whoever, whatever). Other languages have similar regular patterns - these are not just a random bunch of quantifiers but clearly a subsystem of some sort. – Dominik Lukes Nov 06 '15 at 23:06
  • @jlawler I find it hard to think of 'somehow/anyhow' as a quantifier since it clearly refers to quality. Or even 'somewhere' which has more of a referential property similar to a pronoun but clearly not a pronoun. In Czech, the system is even more elaborate including things like 'kdekdo/kdeco/kdejak/kdejaký' (where+who/what/how/what kind = just about anyone/anything/any way/any kind) and kdokoli/cokoli (whoever, whatever). Other languages have similar regular patterns - these are not just a random bunch of quantifiers but clearly a subsystem of some sort. – Dominik Lukes Nov 06 '15 at 23:09
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    If you don't like "somehow" as a quantifier since it refers to quality, let's call it a "qualifier" instead of "quantifier". Happy now? – Greg Lee Nov 06 '15 at 23:26
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    @GregLee That wasn't really the point. I don't particularly care what it's called (see above). What I'm reacting to is the suggestion that these things are somehow unproblematically some other one thing rather than their own little 'subsystem' with its own patterns of regularity and productivity/motivation that overlaps with things like quantifiers and 'qualifiers'. For me this is more of an example of a broader issue with ignoring these 'islands of regularity' rather than a big deal in its own right. – Dominik Lukes Nov 07 '15 at 14:47
  • You asked whether it was a subsystem, and "quantifier" is the system they would putatively be a subsystem of. There still aren't any words in this constellation that aren't quantifiers. So is there a definitive list, or is there a random bunch? – jlawler Nov 07 '15 at 16:11

3 Answers3

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More traditionally oriented grammars call this subsystem Indefinite pronouns. Restricting the pronouns to words that really replace nouns (taking pro-noun literally) and reclassifying the rest of the old pronouns as determiners, adjectives, adverbs and particles is a rather recent innovation.

EDIT: I found two more terms: In a (hardly citable, but once you have the term you can track it down) Lateinische Schulgrammatik I found the term pronomina corelata for the pronomial part (including adjectives) of the system you describe.

Even better is the next one, it describes the full system. In Esperanto, thoses word are called tabelvortoj (table words).

Sir Cornflakes
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  • Thanks. Do you have a reference? Modern grammars simply ignore this. Indefinite pronoun was one of the terms I considered by it doesn't work very well cross linguistically where the morphology excludes certain forms. Even in English, it's hard to think of 'anywhere' as a pronoun. Also, I know at least some grammars classify words like nothing as 'negative pronouns' and think of 'any' and 'no' as negative quantifiers. – Dominik Lukes Nov 06 '15 at 15:29
  • Browsing for a reference, here is Aelius Donatus (in Latin!). He has the adjectival forms in the pronoun class, but the adverbial forms in the adverb class: http://www.hs-augsburg.de/~harsch/Chronologia/Lspost04/Donatus/don_amin.html#pn – Sir Cornflakes Nov 06 '15 at 16:15
  • More importantly, a lot of these words are negative polarity items, and that is an important subsystem that overlies much of indefiniteness (the very term indefinite shows how basic negation is). – jlawler Nov 06 '15 at 16:15
  • One of the reasons for my question is that I often use this as an example of how traditional grammatical hierarchical description can miss important aspects of the patterns of language - a case for a constructional approach. And I wanted to make sure that this is not well-known in some branch of linguistics and/or grammar I haven't come across. So far, it seems that I was right. It's not all that important that it has a fancy sounding linguistic termy name. I'd rather call it the 'something, nothing, anything constructional constellation' than try to jam it into the existing terminology. – Dominik Lukes Nov 06 '15 at 18:44
  • @jknappen Thanks. This was useful. Just to clarify, I was not trying to claim this as an original discovery. I did mention that I haven't seen this outside pedagogic grammars. Your references all seem to lean in the direction of pedagogic - this confirms my suspicion that this is not an established category in linguistics at large that I've somehow missed. Again, my interest is more broadly theoretical than grammatical. Why is a relatively large subsystem not thought of as a subsystem worth attention? – Dominik Lukes Nov 08 '15 at 12:04
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    A classic reference is Haspelmath 1997, see also his article in WALS. – Ivan Kapitonov Nov 09 '15 at 00:14
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These are all compounds of a logical quantifier (no[ne], some, many, most, each, every, all) and a basic noun (thing; body, one; time, ever, when; where; how, way[s]). Some are also contractions (n[ot]ever, al[l]ways).

amI
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Your list of words resonates with me. I have no answer to your question about whether they are treated as a group in any linguistics discussion.

However the NSM theory of semantics (and the perspective on grammar that flows from that semantics) suggests a list of indefinable semantic elements, which include the following: NOT, SOME, ALL, SOMEONE, SOMETHING~THING, WHERE~PLACE, WHEN~TIME, LIKE~AS~WAY.

Rather than be concerned with grammar and grammatical terminology I'm rather inspired to draw a direct line from these semantic elements to your list of obviously related words. Incidentally I connect LIKE~AS~WAY with how.

My answer is technically a comment. I know that you are aware of this theory, so I apologise if I am breaking the rules here. I am new to this site.

John McKeon
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  • Extending on *how* I also see a natural grouping in SOMEONE, *who, SOMETHING, which, TIME~WHEN, PLACE~WHERE, BECAUSE, why* as well as LIKE~AS~WAY, *how*. [The capitals are used for the proposed semantic elements.] – John McKeon Jun 05 '16 at 05:48