syntactic expletive

noun

Definitions

  1. A pronoun that is used at the start of a sentence or clause when the referent is not…

    A pronoun that is used at the start of a sentence or clause when the referent is not immediately known, but an argument for the verb is syntactically required.

    • In the sentences "It is a hammer that is needed." and "There are hammers in the toolbox.", both "it" and "there" are syntactic expletives.

The neighborhood

Vish — recursive loop

No curated loop yet for syntactic expletive. Loops are being traced one word at a time while the ingestion pipeline matures.

sense glosses and etymology drawn from English Wiktionary · source · CC-BY-SA