Ye Merrye Conlangre: Indefinite Pronouns

Everything here is stolen from Indefinite Pronouns by Martin Haspelmath. I have just collected useful bits and pieces (and added some mistakes, probably).

0. Introduction

Indefinite pronouns are one type of "correlative pronoun". (Correlatives are things like question words (who, what, how), universals (everybody, everything), demonstratives, relative clause markers, indefinite pronouns, etc.) Indefinite pronouns (along with other correlatives) tend to come in various series. For example, in English, we have the any-, some-, no- series. Thus: anyone, anything, anywhere, someone, something, somewhere, ....

There are a selection of possible "ontological categories" orthogonal to the categories of correlatives. (So anything corresponds to the thing element of the any- series in English.) Note that most languages have gaps and various irregularities. These series are closed classes but languages will have means to ... open class. (For example color never occurs in a series, but can be gotten periphrastically, e.g. English any color, etc.)

I. Classification of Types

Haspelmath has isolated 9 universal functional types of indefinite pronouns. That is, each indefinite pronoun (series) is used for some subset of these categories. (The coverage may overlap, as seen in the English some-/any- used in types (4) and (5). But notice that there are still some differences in usage, having to do with speaker's expectations.)
Types of Indefinite pronouns with examples.
  1. (SK) Specific, known to speaker:
    "Somebody called while you were away: guess who!"
    "I have something to tell you."
  2. (SU) Specific, unknown to speaker:
    "I heard something, but I couldn't tell what kind of sound it was. "
    "Someone stole my car!"
    "I've seen her before, sometime, I just don't rb when."
  3. (I/NS) Irrealis, non-specific:
    "Please try somewhere/anywhere else!"
    "Buy me something/anything to eat!"
  4. (QU) Polar question:
    "Did somebody/anybody tell you anything about it?"
    "Do you know something/anything about this?"
  5. (COND) Conditional protasis:
    "If you see something/anything, tell me immediately."
  6. (IN) Indirect negation:
    "I don't think that anybody knows the answer."
  7. (DN) Direct negation:
    "Nobody knows the answer."
    "I don't know anything"
    "I know nothing."
  8. (COMP) Standard of comparison:
    "In Freiburg the weather is nicer than anywhere in Germany."
    "She's nicer than anyone else."
  9. (FC) Free Choice:
    "Anybody can solve this simple problem."

Featural:
SpecificKnown to speakerSK (1)
Unknown to speakerSU (2)
Non-specificIrrealis contextI/NS (3)
Negative polarityConditional protasisCOND (5)
Polar questionQU (4)
Standard of comparisonCOMP (8)
Indirect negationIN (6)
Direct negationDN (7)
Free choiceFC (9)

An interesting feature of indefinite pronoun systems in languages is that a series will not cover just any arbitrary subset of the categories above. A series will only cover a contiguous section of the implicational map below. So, for example, while a language may not have a pronoun series that covers only (4) Polar Questions and (8) Standards of Comparison, it could have one that covers (4), (8) and (5) or that covers (4), (8), and (6). (Although (4), (5), (6) and (8) is a more common pattern.)
Implication map:

(7) DN
(1) SK(2) SU(3) I/NS(4) QU(6) IN
(5) COND(8) COMP

(9) FC

II. Sample Systems

Main Conlang Page
Apollo Hogan, Berkeley, California, USA