# Crrelative pronouns?



## larshgf

Hello,

I am sometimes looking in this grammer:

Holton, Mackridge & Philippaki-Warburton: Greek, An Essential Grammar.

In this I found the term "correlative pronouns" and I am not able to confirm this grammatical term anywhere on the internet.
According to this book these correlative pronouns includes the following:

- όποιος,-α,-ο ('whoever')
- οποιοσδήποτε, οποιαδήποτε, οποιοδήποτε (same but stronger)
- ό,τι ('that which, what, whatever')
- οτιδήποτε (same but stronger)
- όσος,-η,-ο ('as much as, as many as, however much; (pl) those which, however many')
- οσοσδήποτε, οσηδήποτε, οσοδήποτε (same but stronger)

As far as I can see the word correlative indicates som kind of mutual relation.

Can anybody here explain why the authors use term "correlative" ?
Could it be that the mentioned pronouns are known by another term?

An answer would be a most welcome Christmas gift for me 

Best Regards
Lars


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## dmtrs

Correlative pronouns are not a kind of pronouns as personal, possessive, relative etc.
The term refers to groups or 'families' of pronouns of different kinds that, as you correctly guessed, are related.
The 'root' pronoun is an interrogative one, and the 'family' is comprised of the ones that can answer to that, demonstratively, indefinitely or relatively.
For example:
ποιος; αυτός/εκείνος/(ε)τούτος... - κάποιος - όποιος/οποιοσδήποτε
τι; κάτι - ό,τι/οτιδήποτε
πόσο; τόσο/τοσοδά - κάμποσο - όσο/οσοδήποτε
(The list is not exhaustive, it's meant to be indicative.)
(In ancient Greek there were more such 'families' since there were much more pronouns.)

I hope you get better Christmas gifts than this one.


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## Perseas

Hello,

I have another book by the same authors (Greek: A comprehensive Grammar). I couldn't find the term "correlative pronouns" in my book. These pronouns (όποιος,-α,-ο; οποιοσδήποτε, οποιαδήποτε, οποιοδήποτε; ό,τι ...) are called "free relative pronouns" in my book. Specifically my grammar reads: "The free relative pronouns and determiners όποιος, ό,τι and όσος belong semantically to both the main clause and the nominal or adverbial clause which they introduce." Anyway, I also found your grammar on internet and read the respective lines.

Here are some examples:
_Θα επιστρέψω ό,τι μου δάνεισες.
I'll return what you lent me.

Όσοι διέπραξαν αυτά τα εγκλήματα θα τιμωρηθούν.
Those who committed these crimes will be punished._

"ότι" and "Όσοι" belong to both the main clause and the nominal clause they introduce. I'm not 100% sure, but probably this is meant by "correlative pronouns".

I read dmtrs' post, while I was typing mine. Yes, this was my first thought, but I couldn't find in Lars' grammar other pronouns being described as "correlatives" than the aforementioned.


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## larshgf

Thank you both of you. Much appreciated. Allthough I am still a bit confused when authors use grammar terminology that is not found elsewhere in the linguistic community.
So I think I will use the term "free relative pronouns".


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## dmtrs

My answer was not based on the term "correlative pronouns" itself; I answered after reverse-translating the term back to Greek terminology, to "συσχετικές αντωνυμίες", and having read Lars's list. So I don't refer to any sources in English at all, nor have I the least idea of what the English term should be.


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## larshgf

The only place I have seen the tem "correlative pronouns" is in fact in my "Collins Greek English Dictionary" on my mobilephone. I had a look there for the Greek adjective "συσχετικός" you sort of gave me Dimitri. 

Collins Greek English Dictionary:
correlative
> *συσχετικές αντωνυμίες/επιρρήματα* 
correlative pronouns/adverbs 

In my Oxford Greek English Dictionary (D N Stavropoulos) the result was…

correlative: ~οί σύνδεσμοι correlative conjunctions.

On Wikipedia the result of "correlative" was…

In grammar, a correlative is a word that is paired with another word with which it functions to perform a single function but from which it is separated in the sentence.
In English, examples of correlative pairs are both–and, either–or, neither–nor, the–the ("the more the better"), so–that ("it ate so much food that it burst"), and if–then. 
(And this is in fact = correlative conjunctions, a well-known term in English grammar, and in fact the only grammatical term which is connected to the adjective "correlative").  

I do not know how it is in Greek grammars in the original greek language, but maybe there is such a thing there like "συσχετικές αντωνυμίες"?


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## Perseas

larshgf said:


> I do not know how it is in Greek grammars in the original greek language, but maybe there is such a thing there like "συσχετικές αντωνυμίες"?


Every question we ask with an interrogative pronoun can be answered with some other pronouns, i.e. relative, demonstrative and relative pronouns. For example: _Πόσος _(interrogative pronoun) coresponds to  _όσος_ (relative pronoun), _τόσος _(demonstrative pronoun) & _κάμποσος_ (indefinite pronoun). These pronouns are called "*συσχετικές αντωνυμίες*".
dmtrs in #2 has written on them too.

But Philippaki-Warburton's grammar doesn't refer to them, as I can deduce.


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## Helleno File

I have  Holton et al's _Essential_ Greek Grammar (1st edition),which I like a lot. To be fair their text Section 4.7 on p 100 about what they call "correlative pronouns" lacks the usual plentiful examples. Their purpose as pronouns is to link two clauses, actual or sometimes implied:

1. Μπορείς να πάρεις ο,τι θέλεις OR οτιδήποτε (θέλεις) - you can have what you want/whichever (you want)/anything you like.

2. Όποιος αργεί να φτασει πρέπει να περιμένει έξω. Whoever arrives late/Anyone arriving late must wait outside.

3. Ρώτησε οποιονδήποτε.  Ask anyone at all.

It took me a long time to work out that anything (as in 1. above) anyone (in 2 and 3) or anywhere as statements or imperatives, _not_ questions or negatives are οτιδήποτε, όποιος and οπουδήποτε.  E.g. Βαλ' το οπουδήποτε is Put it anywhere. But are you going anywhere? is Πηγαίνεις πουθενά; and Δεν πήγα πουθενά is I didn't go anywhere.

The authors' Correspondence table of pronouns, determiners and adverbs in Appendix 1 is a comprehensive summary of how all these and others work together, but needs a lot of thinking about.


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## velisarius

Perseas said:


> "ότι" and "Όσοι" belong to both the main clause and the nominal clause they introduce. I'm not 100% sure, but probably this is meant by "correlative pronouns".



I think the modern terminology in English is "free relative pronoun" (as you mentioned in post #3).


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## Αγγελος

Perhaps the word "correlative", usd of pronouns and adverbs, is best explained with reference to ... Esperanto.
Indeed, in that language, correlatives are formed with fearful symmetry, as seen in the following table:

iu = someone                kiu = who          tiu = that one                  neniu = no one
io = something              kio = what         tio = this thing                 nenio = nothing
iam = some time           kiam = when      tiam = then                    neniam = never
ie = somewhere             kie = where       tie = there                      nenie = nowhere
iel = in some way           kiel = how         tiel = thus                      neniel = in no way  
ial = for some reason     kial = why          tial = for this reason        nenial = for no reason            (there's more...)

Now natural languages are less streamlined, but even so, even English evinces some similar symmetry. In fact, the wh-, th- and n- initial letters go back to Proto-Indo-European.

In Greek, too, equivalent words can be arranged in a similarly symmetric table:

κάποιος      ποιος;      όποιος     άλλος
κάτι            τι;           ό,τι         άλλο
κάποτε       πότε;       όποτε      άλλοτε
κάπου         πού;       όπου       αλλού
κάπως         πώς;      όπως       αλλιώς

Such words are called correlative pronouns/adverbs (in Greek, συσχετικές αντωνυμίες/επιρρήματα). They are not "correlative" in and of themselves, the way "this/αυτός" is a demonstrative and "somewhere/κάπου" is indefinite; they are correlative _in relation to each other _and as elements of the whole "table of correlatives".


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## larshgf

Thanks for contributing Αγγελος. Interesting perspective.


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