re pro-verbs

[Nigel Vincent]

This is not to provide data for Nino's inquiry but to comment on the
proposed terminology. I would like to suggest that we do not call the
items he identifies 'pro-verbs' or even following Martin 'obliviative
pro-verbs'. The reason is that the prefix 'pro-' in the set pronoun,
proverb etc seems to me to have acquired a clear and useful meaning
as referring to items that pick up/refer back to/are anaphorically
linked to a previous item in the sentence or discourse. This function
tends to give them specific distributional properties vis-a-vis full
nouns, verbs, etc. By contrast obliviative items like English
'thingamy' have the standard distribution of a full noun including
co-occurrence with an article, numeral or adjective. So I would
suggest we call what Nino is looking for simply 'obliviative verbs'
and reserve pro-verb for the kind of support, anaphoric function
associated with English 'do' and similar items in other languages.
Nigel Vincent

--
Professor Nigel Vincent
Department of Linguistics
University of Manchester
Manchester
M13 9PL
UK
Phone:	+44-(0)161-275-3194
Fax:	+44-(0)161-275-3187
Email:	nigel.vincent at man.ac.uk
http://lings.ln.man.ac.uk/