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SUMMARY:Expletives in Existentials: English 'there' and German 'da' - Jutt
 a Hartmann (Tilburg)
DTSTART:20070213T180000Z
DTEND:20070213T193000Z
UID:TALK6330@talks.cam.ac.uk
CONTACT:Dr Theresa Biberauer
DESCRIPTION:*Expletives in Existentials: English ‘there’ and German 
 ‘da’*\n\nJutta M. Hartmann (Tilburg University)\n\nThe nature and use 
 of expletives like there in English received a lot of attention in\ntheore
 tical research\, and they are usually considered semantically empty elemen
 ts\, merged in the specifier positions of functional heads (mostly in the 
 domain of TP or CP)\, in order to satisfy an EPP feature. In this talk\, I
  will look at the (syntactic) nature of expletives from the perspective of
  existential structures. \n\nThe crucial data are the following: (i) in ex
 istential structures (i.e _there_ BE NP structures)\, the PP\, often assum
 ed to be part of the predication structure\, is truly optional\; (ii) leav
 ing out the expletive leads to an ungrammatical structure. Interestingly\,
  German _da_\, which is a locative or adverbial pronominal in most of its 
 uses (as will be illustrated)\, also occurs with existential meanings. And
  in these cases\, it exhibits the same properties:  a PP is optional\, and
  _da_ cannot be left out. I conclude from this (i) that the expletive is p
 art of the predication structure of the existential meaning\, and (ii) tha
 t existential meanings are compositionally derived. \n\nTo account for som
 e of the data\, two analyses have been proposed: one suggests that _there_
  is the predicate (cf. Hoekstra and Mulder 1990\, Moro 1997) whereas anoth
 er proposed that _there_ is the subject (cf. Williams 1994\, Hazout 2004) 
 of a small clause predication structure. I will argue that the latter is o
 n the right track\, proposing extensions of this analysis. This move has i
 mplications for the theory of expletives in general: expletives in existen
 tials belong to the core predication structure and are not specifiers of a
  functional projection. Having said this\, I will explore to what extent a
 ll _there_-sentences are existential. I will show that we need to distingu
 ish _there_-BE structures (_There is a man in the garden_ and _there_-V st
 ructures (_There arrived a man_) on the basis of _wh_-movement\, embedding
 \, and comparative structures\, suggesting that _there_-V structures belon
 g into a different basket\, namely inversion structures. Then\, I will con
 centrate on the extended _there_-BE structures (_there be_ NP Adj/Particip
 le) and see to what extent they can be included in an analysis as existent
 ial sentences.\n\n*References*\nHazout\, Ilan. 2004. The syntax of existen
 tial constructions. _Linguistic Inquiry_ 35:393–430.\n\nHoekstra\, Teun\
 , and Rene Mulder. 1990. Unergatives as copular verbs: Locational and exis
 tential predication.\n_The Linguistic Review_ 7:1–79.\n\nMoro\, Andrea. 
 1997. _The raising of predicates: Predicative noun phrases and the\ntheory
  of clause structure._ Cambridge/ New York/ Melbourne: Cambridge UP.\n\nWi
 lliams\, Edwin. 1994._Thematic structure in syntax._ Cambridge\, MA/ Londo
 n:\nMIT Press. \n
LOCATION:G-R04\, English Faculty
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