Syntax and Semantics of the there construction in English

Abstract

This paper examines the syntax and semantics of the there construction in English. It is argued that a variety of syntactic properties of the there construction are better explained by the phrase-structure analysis than by the transformational there-Insertion analysis. It is also claimed that the meaning of the there construction is the assertion of the existence of an entity (entities) or an event (events) either in the physical world or in the discourse world formed by the discourse in which a there sentence occurs. Then, it is pointed out that the grammaticality or ungrammaticality of the there construction is largely determined by discourse-pragmatic factors