Conclusions

Abstract This book has explored indefinite pronouns in the world's languages in order to identify cross-linguistic generalizations. The study of indefinite pronouns has important implications for semantics, pragmatics, syntax, and morphology. This chapter summarizes the book's main findings and considers possible further typological connections. One significant finding is that most languages have indefinite pronouns of some kind, and that their shapes are fairly uniform across languages. In particular, such pronouns are generally of one of two types: either derived from interrogative pronouns by means of an indefiniteness marker or based on generic nouns such as ‘person’ or ‘thing’. The book has also shown that functional explanations are prominent in negative indefinite pronouns, and that the regularities of diachronic change are explained by the theory of grammaticalization. The main synchronic typological generalizations took the form of universal implications among different functions of indefinite pronouns, expressed by the implicational map.