Acronyms that contain the term syntactic expletive 

Syntactic expletive

Syntactic expletives are words that perform a syntactic role but contribute nothing to meaning. Expletive subjects in the form of dummy pronouns are part of the grammar of many non-pro-drop languages such as English, whose clauses normally require overt provision of subject even when the subject can be pragmatically inferred. Consider this example: Following the eighteenth-century conception of pronoun, Bishop Robert Lowth objected that since it is a pronoun, it should have an antecedent. Since it cannot function like that in Latin, Lowth said that the usage was incorrect in English. By this approach, the correct phrasing would be: Contrast it is necessary that you ... with its Latin equivalent oportet tibi, meaning more or less 'necessitates for you'. Since subject pronouns are not used in Latin except for emphasis, neither are expletive pronouns and the problem does not arise. Whether or not it is a pronoun here, English is not Latin; and the sentence was and is fully acceptable to native speakers of English and thus was and is grammatical. It has no meaning here; it merely serves as a dummy subject.

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