220 Kerstin Kunz and Erich Steiner
The demonstrative pronoun as a substitute in the German subcorpora is usually
postmodified by a prepositional phrase or a relative clause:
(37) Passender noch als der Vergleich mit einem Baustein ist der mit der Perle
einer Kette ... [GO_POPSCI]
In addition to der/die/das, solche is found to refer to count as well as abstract
nouns in the plural:
(38) Für den praktischen Gebrauch benötigt man grössere Zahlen, solche mit mehr
als hundert Dezimalstellen. [GO_POPSCI]
In all of these cases, though, solche can be analyzed as ellipsis, too.
Schreiber (1999: 342f ) points to the fact that possessive pronouns (substanti-
vische Possessivpronomen) also establish a pro-type relation, therefore function-
ing as pro-N:
(39) Fotoapparate? Ja; das haben wir nicht so-äh meiner ist nicht so sehr wert-
voll ... aber der von meinem Verlobten, der hat einige hundert gekostet.
[GO-INTERVIEW]
This analysis also applies to the nominalized variant der meine and der meinige,
two variants which are not available in English.^8
Summarizing our comparison of nominal substitution, we find that in looking
at core nominals from an English perspective (2.2.1.1), the systemic options are
basically there for both languages, except that for countable plurals German only
has only a partial option. Beyond this, we suspect that textually, nominal substi-
tution is dis-preferred relative to English. Changing our perspective to one from
German (2.2.1.2), we identify a relatively clear grammaticalization of ein(e,r,s) as
substitute for countable singulars, yet with restrictions on (pre-)modifiability. Both
the singular, and even more the plural welche, seem to be textually dis-preferred.
Moving on to additional nominal types (2.2.1.3), we saw that German in particular
has an interesting range of further candidate forms, yet all of these on the border-
line to ellipsis in textual instantiation.2.2.2 Verbal substitution
Verbal substitution in English is realized by do (Halliday & Hasan 1976: 88ff,
115ff ):- We thus re-classify them from our earlier classification as types of reference (see Kunz and
Steiner forthcoming, Section 3.1.2).