Before we continue with what this chapter really is about, pronouns, we have to make a small loop to discuss a related phenomenon: The pronominal adverb.

The pronominal adverb, or 'pronoun adverb', is not a complete novelty to English speakers:

"Whereof one cannot speak, thereof one must be silent" --Ludwig Wittgenstein

"I know a bank whereon the wild thyme blows"

--William Shakespeare

We use it in modern English too:

"I am hereby sending you the details of your order."

"Therefore, we decided to postpone the project."

The mechanism

Whereof is another way of saying 'of which'. Hereby is 'by this', therefore is 'for that', and so on.

If the pronoun what/which, this, or that is preceded by a preposition (of, by, for), we can replace the pronoun by the adverb where, here, or there.

Note that we can only do this to pronouns that refer to inanimate things, not to persons.

Which/what turns into where:

whereof	of what
wherewith	with what

This turns into here:

hereon	on this
hereby	by this

That turns into there:

thereof	of that
therefore	for that

On the next page, we will look at the Dutch pronominal adverbs.