dummy (adj./n.)

A term used in LINGUISTICS to refer to a FORMAL GRAMMATICAL ELEMENT introduced into a STRUCTURE or an analysis to ensure that a grammatical SENTENCE is produced. Apart from their formal role, dummy elements have no meaning – they are SEMANTICALLY empty, e.g. there in there were many people at the club, it in it’s raining. When this element acts as a locus for grammatical CONTRASTS, it is referred to as a dummy carrier, e.g. do in QUESTION forms is a dummy auxiliary, which carries the TENSE/NUMBER contrast for the VERB PHRASE (do/did you know, do/does he know). Notions involving ZERO (e.g. ‘zero morpheme’) could also be considered types of dummy. In TRANSFORMATIONAL GRAMMAR, dummy symbols are sometimes introduced into the DEEP STRUCTURE of a sentence, to facilitate the DERIVATION of CLASSES of sentence, but they never appear in the sentence’s surface structure, e.g. the various kinds of BOUNDARY SYMBOL, or the DELTA (∆) symbol which acts as a ‘place-holder’ for LEXICAL ITEMS (specified as COMPLEX SYMBOLS). In GOVERNMENT-BINDING THEORY, the term refers to elements in A-position (usually in subject position) with no THETA ROLE; they are also known as ‘expletives’.