Many languages use a replacement verb as a pro-verb to avoid repetition: English "do" (for example, "I like pie, and so does he"), French: faire, Swedish: göra.
[2] The parallels between the roles of pronouns and pro-verbs on language are "striking": both are anaphoric and coreferential, able to replace very complex syntactic structures.
The latter property makes it sometimes impossible to replace a pro-verb with a verb, thus its utility (like the one of a pronoun) goes beyond the stylistic variation of word substitution.
In the latter case, the preposition, depending on the language and context, can be either omitted from the pro-verb construct, added, copied, or modified.
"[6]) The term "pro-verb" is used in English linguistics since the 19th century, a standard example is provided by variations of the verb "do": "I liked the movie; she did too" (did stands for "liked it").
Similarly, the auxiliary verbs have and be can double as pro-verbs for perfect, progressive, and passive constructions by eliding the participle.
For example, in "I want to get an 'A', but to do so, I need to get a perfect score on the next test," there is no other pro-verb that could be used; whereas in "I want to get an 'A', but I can't do so," the do so could simply be elided, and doing so would make the sentence sound less formal.
[17] Olof Eriksson, a professor of French linguistics, offers the following example to illustrate that pro-verbs in French are not purely substitutional: Les ouvriers de l'entreprise Dardart se rendirent au café Le Transatlantique pour prendre l'apéritif, comme ils le faisaient une fois par semaine.
Here, the replacement se rendirent au café Le Transatlantique pour prendre l'apéritif with faisaient enables une fois par semaine to start in the proper syntactic context of a comparative clause attached to the whole of se rendirent au café Le Transatlantique pour prendre l'apéritif.