Patterns of variation in existential constructions (2015) (original) (raw)
Related papers
The Historical Development of Existential Constructions in Old Sardinian
Journal of International Studies, 2021
The possessive, locative, and existential sentences in Romance languages have similar logical structural properties. The first purpose of this study is to discuss some of the shared properties between possessive and existential constructions, and between locative and existential constructions in Old Sardinian. Previous studies have claimed that the similarities in Italo-Romance existential sentences arose diachronically upon a structural reanalysis of possessive and locative sentences and a grammaticalization of locative clitics to proforms. Consequently, the second purpose of this study is to find support for the claims in previous studies regarding the historical development of existentials by examining possessives and locatives with proforms, which are obligatory component in Sardinian existentials, and structures that can be interpreted both as possessives and existentials, as well as both locatives and existentials.
Existential Sentences Cross-Linguistically: Variations in Form and Meaning
Though the term "existential sentence" goes back at least as far as Jespersen (1924, 155) and is used in descriptions of many languages to refer to a designated construction, it is difficult to identify exactly what these constructions have in common cross-linguistically. Following McNally (2011), the term is used here to refer to sentence types that are "noncanonical," whether due to some aspect of their syntax or the presence of a distinguished lexical item (e.g. Spanish hay). A representative sample is presented of the different structural resources used to build existential sentences: distinguished existential predicates, on the one hand, and copular, possessive, and expletive or impersonal constructions, on the other. The corresponding variation in the compositional semantics of existentials is then addressed, as is pragmatic or discourse functional variation. The variationist perspective is contrasted with universalist approaches to existentials such as that in Freeze (2001).
Existential constructions. A semasiological perspective
Existential constructions are normally defined as sentences in which some entity is associated with some location giving rise to the so-called locative paradigm which also involves the locative and the possessive construction (cf. Freeze 2001). In spite of the apparent simplicity of this approach, the assumption of an allegedly universal locative paradigm leaves unaccounted a broad variety of languages in which existential constructions cannot be straightforwardly related to the locative onomasiological format. In these languages, existential constructions arise as a consequence of complex grammaticalization changes, which start from different source constructions. In this paper, a semasiological perspective is adopted, which aims at sketching a brief typology of the possible source constructions giving rise to existential constructions.
Focus in Existential Sentences (2012)
Starting from the question of the extension of the focus in existential constructions, this paper primarily aims to draw up a classification of both genuine and spurious types of existential sentences in Italian. Four major types will be identified: (I) existential sentences, (II) inverse locatives, (III) deictic locatives, and (IV) presentational sentences. It will be shown that this classification may shed new light on the apparent differences between Italian and other languages, such as English, with regard to well-known phenomena and restrictions such as the definiteness effects. The pragmatic, semantic, and syntactic properties of the elements occurring in this construction will be examined with respect to each type of sentence identified. Following the cartographic approach, the existence of particular structures in Italian (types II and III) will be analysed in terms of discourse-related syntactic operations associated with designated functional projections within the clause, such as the focalization of postverbal subjects and the dislocation of old-information constituents. Type IV, instead, will be argued to be the result of a process of grammaticalization peculiar to Italian and, at least synchronically, unrelated to genuine existential sentences. A Luigi, a cui sono sinceramente grato e riconoscente per tutto ciò che mi ha trasmesso e insegnato
Temporal existential constructions in Romance
Current Issues in Linguistic Theory, 2001
This article offers an analysis of the lexical properties and syntactic behavior of temporal existential constructions, a kind of construction not often discussed in the literature on Romance languages. The relationship between the temporal existential verbs and other existential verbs, like locative and deontic verbs, is examined. Two kinds of temporal existential constructions can be distinguished: temporal circumstantial constructions, which act as a temporal circumstantial adjunct, and temporal presentational constructions, which precedea finite clause headed by a complementizer. Both constructions provide an excellent opportunity to study the properties of the left periphery categories. * For comments and suggestions, I am grateful to my colleagues in the Grup de Gramàtica Teòrica of the Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona, especially to L. Amadas, Z.
Existentials and Locatives in Romance Dialects of Italy
2015
Links to third party websites are provided by Oxford in good faith and for information only. Oxford disclaims any responsibility for the materials contained in any third party website referenced in this work. Contents List of figures and tables viii List of abbreviations ix Dialect maps xiii 1 Existentials and locatives in Romance dialects of Italy: Introduction Delia Bentley 1.1 An overview of existentials and other there sentences 1.1.1 Existentials: Romance and beyond 1.2 Scope and objectives of the volume 1.3 Authorship, methodology, theoretical underpinnings of the research 1.3.1 The Manchester projects on existential constructions 1.3.2 Role and Reference Grammar 1.4 Acknowledgements 1.5 Outline of the volume 2 Focus structure Silvio Cruschina 2.1 Introduction 2.1.1 The notions of focus and topic 2.1.2 Focus structure types 2.2 Sentence-focus existentials with no overt topic 2.2.1 Morphosyntactic properties 2.2.2 Stage-level topics and contextual domain 2.3 Existentials with an overt topic 2.3.1 Locative aboutness topics 2.3.2 Partitive topics and the split-focus structure 2.4 Argument-focus there sentences 2.4.1 Inverse locatives 2.4.2 Deictic locatives 2.5 Presentational there sentences 2.6 Conclusion 3 Predication and argument realization Delia Bentley 3.1 Introduction 3.2 The locative hypothesis 3.2.1 The correspondence of copulas and proforms 3.2.2 The definiteness effect on word order 3.3 The pivot-as-predicate hypothesis 3.3.1 Finite agreement 3.3.2 Supporting evidence 3.3.3 Challenges 3.3.4 Synopsis 3.4 Predication and argument realization in there sentences 3.4.1 Two types of existential construction 3.4.2 The correspondence of copulas and proforms revisited 3.4.3 Argument structure and predication in other there sentences 3.4.4 Synopsis 3.5 Conclusion 4 Definiteness effects and linking Delia Bentley 4.1 Definiteness effects: the Romance puzzle 4.2 Subject canonicality and word order 4.3 Subject canonicality and agreement 4.3.1 The differential marking of the post-copular noun phrase 4.3.2 The case of pivots with inde-cliticization 4.3.3 Specificity effects 4.3.4 Beyond existential sentences 4.3.5 Agreement and the impersonal hypothesis 4.3.6 Synopsis 4.4 Semantics-syntax linking in there sentences 4.4.1 Linking in existential there sentences 4.4.2 Linking in other there sentences 4.5 Conclusion 5 Historical context
The paper deals with the non-typical structure and coding properties of ‘existential-like’ utterances in Colloquial Modern Hebrew (CMH), with reference to parallels in some major Indo-European languages. The construction explored consists of an invariable (neuter) predicate incorporating an empty referential subject (S) morpheme, plus an explicit postverbal NP representing the logic-semantic subject (S′) that is eficient in topicality and behaves like an O (though it is not a Patient argument). This construction exhibits inconsistency and instability in several aspects of its encoding. Taking the structure-based approach as its starting point, the paper’s main argument is that the construction under investigation is a special impersonal construction displaying a split between the grammatical S and semantic S′. Typologically, it proposes a unified account of the construction in both synthetic inflectional languages like Hebrew, which do not require an expletive/ dummy-subject, and in analytic inflectional languages like English, German and French that do require it. The paper disputes the assumption that the postverbal NP in this construction is an O or an S that became an O. The underlying assumption of the paper is that a construction is a form-meaning-function unit; accordingly, the construction at hand is examined not only from the structural and semantic viewpoint but also from the viewpointof functional sentence perspective and the speaker’s perspectival choice with respect to the construal of the event.