INDEFINITE PRONOUNS AND THEIR FUNCTIONS

Abstract

Indefinite pronouns have traditionally played only a minor role in descriptive linguistics, but the theoretical work in semantics, pragmatics and syntax of the last few decades has shown that the distribution of indefinite pronouns is highly complex and interesting in many ways. These theoretical discussions have often used the narrower terms quantifiers or negative polarity items for certain sub-classes of indefinite pronouns. This article gives a comprehensive overview of the main theoretical debates around the semantic and syntactic properties of indefinite pronouns.