In linguistics, a placeholder word or a placeholder is a word that is used in place of an exact word. In some cases they are used in speech to replace a forgotten word or a word about which the speaker is unsure.[Elena Klyachko, "Functions of placeholder words in Evenki", In: Tungusic languages: Past and present, pp. 199-226] For example the writer may be unsure whether the technical word would be familiar to the readers[Ruth Carroll, "Vague language in the recipes of the Forme of Curry, In: Instructional Writing in English: Studies in Honour of Risto Hiltunen, Placeholder Words] or the speaker themselves is unsure which word to use.[ These words, such as "thingummyjig" are not part of standard written language and are not captured well by Text corpus.][ These may replace both names of objects ("thingummabob") and the personal names (, e.g., "Mr. Whatshisname").][ Placeholder words are often used to convey vagueness. Other means to introduce vagueness are the use of taxonomic nouns with adaptors ("kind of tree"), generic words ("thing", "stuff"), etc.][Marina Cristina Lo Baido, "Vagueness Explored: The role of comment clauses", In: Vagueness, Ambiguity, and All the Rest: Linguistic and pragmatic approaches, p.186: "Means to be vague in discourse"] Some authors, e.g., Neil Grave, include generic words ("thing", "stuff") in the category of placeholder words as well. At the same time, Neil Grave notes that the generic words may perform a large number other functions, e.g., to be a vague category marker (as in "shorts and T-shirts, and stuff").[Neil Drave, "Vaguely speaking: a corpus approach to vague language in intercultural conversations", In: New Frontiers of Corpus Research, conference papers, 2016, pp. 26-40]
A thorough treatment of vague language, including placeholder words was provided by Joanna Channell.[Joanna Channell, Vague Language, 1994, Chapter 7: " Thingy and whatsisname: placeholder words" readable in the Internet Archive] In particular, she demonstrates that dictionaries often provide inadequate definitions and explanations of vague lexical items.
Some earlier studies that did not yet adopt the term "placeholder" use the terms "filler", "dummy".[ The terms "lexical filler", "oblitive noun/verb" are used to denote what Vera Podlesskaya calls "hesitation markers", used when a speaker is temporarily unable to recall the exact name of the object.][, "Parameters for typological variation of placeholders", In: Fillers, Pauses and Placeholders, 2010, pp.11-32]
Classification
Some functions of vague language include:
J. Channell grouped placeholder nouns into three categories: those which replace names, these which replace object names, those which can replace both.[
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Another grouping is usage motivated by speaker's abilities and usage motivated by speaker's intentions.[
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Some researchers distinguish "placeholder use" and "avoidance use", e.g., for demonstrative words (such as "this"), i.e., use a narrower definition of the concept oof placeholder.[
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While in most cases the placeholders are nominal elements, verbal, adjectival, or adverbial placeholders exist, e.g., in Mandarin Chinese.[Cheung, Lawrence, "Uttering the unutterable with wh-placeholders", Journal of East Asian Linguistics, vol.2 4, 2015, pp. 271–308. (as cited by Tohru Seraku 2024)]
Vera Podlesskaya states that across many languages the placeholder words may be placed into the following lexical categories:[
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Demonstrative, indefinite, or interrogative pronouns
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Nouns stripped of their actual semantics
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In some languages the above two may be blended
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ad-hoc constructions usually starting with an interrogative word, e.g., whatsisname
In some languages a separate type of lexical items have been developed to serve as placeholders, variously called as "noun substitutes" or "indefinite substitution words".[
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Use cases
In Evenki language a placeholder word may replace both nouns and verbs and may be modified (e.g., with to match its function in the structure of a sentence to some degree (although the researcher suggests that missing functionality may simply be due to the limited speech corpus).[
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Spanish language placeholders: cosa, cacharro, chintófono, chisme, menda, mengano.[As cited by Seraku 2024:
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Núñez Pertejo, Paloma. 2018. A contrastive study of placeholders in the speech of British and Spanish teenagers. In Arne Ziegler (ed.), Jugendsprachen/youth languages, 391–418. Berlin: De Gruyter.
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Núñez Pertejo, Paloma. 2020. Can I borrow your thingamajig? ¿No estará grabando este chisme? In Hans Sauer & Rüdiger Pfeiffer-Rupp (eds.), Ihr werdet die Wahrheit erkennen/Ye shall know the truth,260–280. Trier: Wissenschaftlicher Verlag Trier.
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Galician language: chintófano (unspecified object), chilindrada (small thing), chisma (unspecified or unknown object), chisme, conto (replacina an unknown or forgotten name), traste (useless thing), trasto.[ chintófano, Dicionario de Galego]
In Russian linguistics the concept of "deconcretization pronouns" or "representatives" is considered. Usually they are formed from with the addition of postfix "-to": такой-то, так-то, столько-то (takoy-to, tak-to, stolko-to) Most often these are used to simplify quotations of someone's direct speech: "Сказал, что поступит так-то и так-то" ("He said that he will do it in this and that way"),[Vera Podlesskaya, "РУССКИЕ УКАЗАТЕЛЬНЫЕ МЕСТОИМЕНИЯ КАК МАРКЕРЫЧУЖОЙ РЕЧИRUSSIAN DEMOSTRATIVES AS MARHERS OF REPORTED SPEECH"] but also may be used to represent indefinite or unimportant things or numbers: "Потратил столько-то денег" (" spent that much irrelevant money")[ "Pronouns of deconcretization in Russian explanatory dictionaries"]
See also
