Editing Pleonasm (section)

===Syntactic pleonasm===
[[Syntax|Syntactic]] pleonasm occurs when the [[grammar]] of a language makes certain [[function word]]s optional.{{cn|date=December 2024}} For example, consider the following [[English language|English]] sentences:
* "I know you're coming."
* "I know that you're coming."

In this construction, the [[grammatical conjunction|conjunction]] ''that'' is optional when joining a sentence to a [[verb]] phrase with ''know''. Both sentences are grammatically correct, but the word ''that'' is pleonastic in this case. By contrast, when a sentence is in spoken form and the verb involved is one of assertion, the use of ''that'' makes clear that the present speaker is making an indirect rather than a direct quotation, such that he is not imputing particular words to the person he describes as having made an assertion; the demonstrative adjective ''that'' also does not fit such an example. Also, some writers may use "that" for technical clarity reasons.<ref>{{cite book|title=Possible Worlds: an introduction to Logic and its Philosophy|year=1979|url=https://www.sfu.ca/~swartz/pw/index.htm|author=Norman Swartz & Raymond Bradley}}</ref> In some languages, such as French, the word is not optional and should therefore not be considered pleonastic.

The same phenomenon occurs in [[Spanish language|Spanish]] with subject pronouns. Since Spanish is a [[null-subject language]], which allows subject pronouns to be deleted when understood, the following sentences mean the same:
* "{{lang|es|Yo te amo.}}"
* "{{lang|es|Te amo.}}"

In this case, the pronoun {{lang|es|yo}} ('I') is grammatically optional; both sentences mean "I love you" (however, they may not have the same tone or ''intention''—this depends on [[pragmatics]] rather than grammar). Such differing but [[syntax|syntactically]] equivalent constructions, in many languages, may also indicate a difference in [[Register (sociolinguistics)|register]].

The process of deleting pronouns is called ''[[pro-drop language|pro-dropping]]'', and it also happens in many other languages, such as [[Korean language|Korean]], [[Japanese language|Japanese]], [[Hungarian language|Hungarian]], [[Latin]], [[Italian language|Italian]], [[Portuguese language|Portuguese]], [[Swahili language|Swahili]], [[Slavic languages]], and the [[Lao language]].

In contrast, formal English requires an overt subject in each clause. A sentence may not need a subject to have valid meaning, but to satisfy the syntactic requirement for an explicit subject a pleonastic (or [[dummy pronoun]]) is used; only the first sentence in the following pair is acceptable English:
* "It's raining."
*  "Is raining."

In this example the pleonastic "it" fills the subject function, but it contributes no meaning to the sentence. The second sentence, which omits the pleonastic '''it''' is marked as ungrammatical although no meaning is lost by the omission.<ref>Haegeman, L. (1991). ''Introduction to Government and Binding Theory''. Blackwell Publishing. p. 62.</ref> Elements such as "it" or "there", serving as empty subject markers, are also called (syntactic) [[Expletive (linguistics)#Syntactic expletive|expletives]], or dummy pronouns. Compare:
* "There is rain."
*  "Today is rain."

The pleonastic {{lang|fr|ne}} ({{lang|fr|ne pléonastique}}), expressing uncertainty in formal [[French language|French]], works as follows:
* "{{lang|fr|Je crains qu'il ne pleuve.}}"<br />('I fear it may rain.')
* "{{lang|fr|Ces idées sont plus difficiles à comprendre que je ne pensais.}}"<br />('These ideas are harder to understand than I thought.')

Two more striking examples of French pleonastic construction are {{lang|fr|aujourd'hui}} and {{lang|fr|Qu'est-ce que c'est?}}.

The word {{lang|fr|aujourd'hui}}/{{lang|fr|au jour d'hui}} is translated as 'today', but originally means "on the day of today" since the now obsolete {{lang|fr|hui}} means "today". The expression {{lang|fr|au jour d'aujourd'hui}} (translated as "on the day of today") is common in spoken language and demonstrates that the original construction of {{lang|fr|aujourd'hui}} is lost. It is considered a pleonasm.

The phrase {{lang|fr|Qu'est-ce que c'est?}} meaning 'What's that?' or 'What is it?', while literally, it means "What is it that it is?".

There are examples of the pleonastic, or dummy, negative in English, such as the construction, heard in the New England region of the United States, in which the phrase "So don't I" is intended to have the same positive meaning as "So do I."<ref>Horn, Laurence R. ''Universals of Human Language'', Volume I, edited by Joseph H. Greenberg, p. 176</ref><ref>Wood, Jim P. (2008), "''So''-inversion as Polarity Focus"; in Michael Grosvald and Dianne Soares (eds.), ''Proceedings of the 38th Western Conference on Linguistics''; Fresno, California: University of California Press; pp. 304–317</ref>

When [[Robert South]] said, "It is a pleonasm, a figure usual in [[Bible|Scripture]], by a multiplicity of expressions to signify one notable thing",<ref>{{Cite book|chapter-url=https://books.google.com/books?id=ukIVAAAAQAAJ&pg=PA368|chapter=Sermon XIII Preached at St. Mary's, Oxford, on Sept. 12, 1658 |title=Five additional volumes of sermons preached upon several occasions|volume=8|first=Robert |last=South|date=1744|page=368}}</ref> he was observing the [[Biblical Hebrew]] poetic propensity to repeat thoughts in different words, since written Biblical Hebrew was a comparatively early form of written language and was written using oral patterning, which has many pleonasms. In particular, very many verses of the [[Psalms]] are split into two halves, each of which says much the same thing in different words. The complex rules and forms of written language as distinct from spoken language were not as well-developed as they are today when the books making up the [[Old Testament]] were written.<ref>Ong, Walter J., ''Orality and Literacy (New Accents)'', p. 38, {{ISBN|0-415-28129-6}}</ref><ref>McWhorter, John C. ''Doing Our Own Thing'', p. 19. {{ISBN|1-59240-084-1}}</ref> See also [[parallelism (rhetoric)]].

This same pleonastic style remains very common in modern poetry and songwriting (e.g., "Anne, with her father&nbsp;/ is out in the boat&nbsp;/ riding the water&nbsp;/ riding the waves&nbsp;/ on the sea", from [[Peter Gabriel]]'s "Mercy Street").