This article may require cleanup to meet Wikipedia's quality standards. Please discuss this issue on the talk page or replace this tag with a more specific message. This article has been tagged since August 2007.

The word expletive is currently used in three senses: syntactic expletives, expletive attributives, and "bad language". Image File history File links Broom_icon. ...

The word expletive comes from the Latin verb explere, meaning "to fill", via expletivus, "filling out". It was introduced into English in the seventeenth century to refer to various kinds of padding — the padding out of a book with peripheral material, the addition of syllables to a line of poetry for metrical purposes, and so forth. Use of expletive for such a meaning is now rare. Rather, expletive is a term in linguistics for a meaningless word filling a syntactic vacancy (syntactic expletives). Outside linguistics, the word is much more commonly used to refer to "bad language". Some linguists use it to refer to meaningless, "filler" use of "bad language" ("expletive attributives"), distinguishing this from meaningful use. Latin is an ancient Indo-European language originally spoken in Latium, the region immediately surrounding Rome. ... It has been suggested that Verbal agreement be merged into this article or section. ...

Syntactic expletives

Syntactic expletives are words that perform a syntactic role but contribute nothing to meaning. Expletive subjects are part of the grammar of many non-pro-drop languages such as English, whose clauses normally require overt provision of subject even when the subject can be pragmatically inferred (for an alternative theory considering expletives like there as a dummy predicates rather than a dummy subject based on the analysis of the copula see Moro 1997 in the list of references cited here). Consider this example: For the topic in theoretical computer science, see Formal grammar Grammar is the study of rules governing the use of language. ... A pro-drop language (from pronoun-dropping) is a language where pronouns can be deleted when they are in some sense pragmatically inferable (the precise conditions vary from language to language, and can be quite intricate). ... According to a tradition that can be tracked back to Aristotle, every sentence can be divided in two main constituents, one being the subject of the sentence and the other being its predicate. ... In linguistics and logic, a predicate is an expression that can be true of something. ... According to a tradition that can be tracked back to Aristotle, every sentence can be divided in two main constituents, one being the subject of the sentence and the other being its predicate. ... This article or section does not cite its references or sources. ...

"It is important that you work hard for the exam."

Following the eighteenth-century conception of pronoun, Bishop Robert Lowth objected that since it is a pronoun, it should have an antecedent. Since it cannot function like that in Latin, Lowth said that the usage was incorrect in English. In linguistics and grammar, a pronoun is a pro-form that substitutes for a noun or noun phrase with or without a determiner, such as you and they in English. ... Robert Lowth, D. D. Lord Bishop of London Robert Lowth (November 27, 1710 – November 3, 1787) was a Bishop of the Church of England, a professor of poetry at Oxford University and the author of one of the most influential textbooks of English grammar. ... Latin is an ancient Indo-European language originally spoken in Latium, the region immediately surrounding Rome. ... The English language is a West Germanic language that originates in England. ...

Whether or not it is a pronoun here (and linguists today would say that it is one), English is not Latin; and the sentence was and is fully acceptable to native speakers of English and thus was and is grammatical. It has no meaning here; it merely serves as a dummy subject. (It is sometimes called preparatory it or prep it, or a dummy pronoun.) According to a tradition that can be tracked back to Aristotle, every sentence can be divided in two main constituents, one being the subject of the sentence and the other being its predicate. ... A dummy pronoun (or more formally expletive pronoun or pleonastic pronoun) is a type of pronoun used in non-pro-drop languages, such as English, when a particular argument of a verb (or preposition) is nonexistent, unknown, irrelevant, already understood, or otherwise not to be spoken of directly, but a...

It is worth noting that Bishop Lowth did not condemn sentences that use there as an expletive, even though it is one in for example:

"There are ten desks here."

The nomenclature used for the constituents of sentences such as this is still a matter of some dispute, but there might be called subject, are copula, and ten desks predicate nominal. Meanwhile here is an adverbial phrase that conveniently reveals the semantic vacuity of there in this example.

There is some disagreement over whether the it in such sentences as

"It is raining now."

are expletives. Whereas it makes no sense to ask what the it means in "It is important that you work hard for the exam", some people might say that the dummy it in "It is raining now" means the weather (even if the word weather has not previously been mentioned). Thus the it in such sentences is sometimes called expletive, sometimes a weather "it". Compare with weather verb. A dummy pronoun (or more formally expletive pronoun or pleonastic pronoun) is a type of pronoun used in non-pro-drop languages, such as English, when a particular argument of a verb (or preposition) is nonexistent, unknown, irrelevant, already understood, or otherwise not to be spoken of directly, but a... A weather verb is a special verb form found in English and certain other languages which, in its basic sense, is capable of taking only a dummy pronoun as its subject. ...

Expletive attributives

In sentences such as

"You'd better pray for a bloody miracle if you want to avoid bankruptcy."

"That was a bloody good meal."

"The bloody policeman tailed me all the way home."

"I hope he bloody chokes on his pretzels."

bloody contributes nothing to the meaning. Rather, it suggests the strength of feeling (usually anger or irritation, but often admiration, etc.) of the speaker. In having no meaning, it resembles the syntactic expletives discussed above; in these uses, bloody is an expletive. Bloody is the adjectival form of blood but may also be used as a swear word or expletive attributive (intensifier) in Britain, Ireland, Canada, South East Asia, Australia, New Zealand, and Sri Lanka. ...

Expletive attributives common in English include damned, fucking, and motherfucking. Note that not all uses of such words are of this kind: "The concert was fucking brilliant" contains an expletive attributive, but "They filmed themselves fucking" does not as the offensive word is used meaningfully. (However, see below on "bad language".) dAmn (deviantART messaging network) is the name of the real-time chat system implemented on deviantART version 4. ... This article or section does not cite its references or sources. ... This article needs additional references or sources for verification. ...

Other words that are never thought of as offensive can be used in similar ways. For example:

"I forgot to pay the phone bill twice running, so the wretched line was cut off."

The phone line discussed may (before it was cut off) have been just as good as any other, and therefore would not have been wretched in the dictionary senses of "extremely shoddy", "devoid of hope" or similar. Rather, wretched serves here as a politer equivalent of expletive bloody and the like. However, such meaningless uses of inoffensive words are seldom referred to as "expletive".

"Bad language"

The term expletive is commonly used outside linguistics to refer to any "bad language" (or "profanity") that has been censored by the author or by a subsequent censor, used with or without meaning. Expletives in this wide sense may be adjectives, adverbs, nouns or, most commonly, interjections, or (rarely) verbs. Look up Profanity in Wiktionary, the free dictionary. ... In grammar, an adjective is a word whose main syntactic role is to modify a noun or pronoun (called the adjectives subject), giving more information about what the noun or pronoun refers to. ... An adverb is a part of speech. ... In English, a noun or noun substantive is a lexical category which is defined in terms of how its members combine with other grammatical kinds of expressions. ... An interjection is a part of speech that usually has no grammatical connection to the rest of the sentence and simply expresses emotion on the part of the speaker, although most interjections have clear definitions. ... It has been suggested that Verbal agreement be merged into this article or section. ...

This sense became popular when transcripts of Richard Nixon's internal tapes^[1] were made public.^[2] The phrase "expletive deleted" was put into the court record when the notoriously profanity-laced discussions with H. R. "Bob" Haldeman and other Watergate insiders went beyond the bounds of common decency.^[3] The phrase entered the public imagination to the point where protestors outside the White House held up picket signs reading, "IMPEACH THE (EXPLETIVE DELETED)!" As the tapes were declassified over the years, and clips of them were aired on television for documentaries, the word "goddamned" appeared to account for a majority of the references to "Expletive Deleted."^{[citation needed]} Richard Milhous Nixon (January 9, 1913 – April 22, 1994) was the 37th President of the United States, serving from 1969 to 1974. ... H.R. Haldeman, January 21, 1971. ... The Watergate scandal was a 1972 break-in at the Democratic National Committee headquarters at a Watergate Office Building in Washington, D.C. by members of Richard Nixons administration and the resulting cover-up which led to the resignation of the President. ...

In later years, the phrase expletive deleted became commonplace as an ironic expression that indicates that a profanity has been omitted and passed into general usage as a convenient linguistic figleaf. Irony is a literary or rhetorical device, in which there is a gap or incongruity between what a speaker or a writer says and what is generally understood (either at the time, or in the later context of history). ... The term natural language is used to distinguish languages spoken and signed (by hand signals and facial expressions) by humans for general-purpose communication from constructs such as writing, computer-programming languages or the languages used in the study of formal logic, especially mathematical logic. ... Eugen Sandow as the Dying Gaul A fig leaf is the covering up of an act or an object that is embarrassing or disagreeable. ...

References

Walter Haskell Pincus (born December 24, 1932) is a national security journalist for The Washington Post. ... The Washington Post is the largest newspaper in Washington, D.C.. It is also one of the citys oldest papers, having been founded in 1877. ... is the 303rd day of the year (304th in leap years) in the Gregorian calendar. ... Year 1997 (MCMXCVII) was a common year starting on Wednesday (link will display full 1997 Gregorian calendar). ... is the 77th day of the year (78th in leap years) in the Gregorian calendar. ... Year 2007 (MMVII) is the current year, a common year starting on Monday of the Gregorian calendar and the AD/CE era. ... Richard Milhous Nixon (January 9, 1913 – April 22, 1994) was the 37th President of the United States, serving from 1969 to 1974. ... The Washington Post is the largest newspaper in Washington, D.C.. It is also one of the citys oldest papers, having been founded in 1877. ... December 5 is the 339th day (340th in leap years) of the year in the Gregorian calendar. ... Year 1996 (MCMXCVI) was a leap year starting on Monday (link will display full 1996 Gregorian calendar). ... is the 77th day of the year (78th in leap years) in the Gregorian calendar. ... Year 2007 (MMVII) is the current year, a common year starting on Monday of the Gregorian calendar and the AD/CE era. ...

Further reading

• Everaert, M.; van Riemsdijk, H; Goedemans, R. (eds) 2006 The Blackwell Companion to Syntax, Volumes I–V, Blackwell, London: see "existential sentences and expletive there" in Volume II.*
• Moro, A. 1997 The Raising of Predicates. Predicative Noun Phrases and the Theory of Clause Structure, Cambridge Studies in Linguistics, 80, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, England.*
• Dunn, Mark; Sergio Aragones (2005). ZOUNDS!: A Browser's Dictionary of Interjections. St. Martin's Griffin. ISBN 0-312-33080-4.