Existential

Abstract

Many languages use specialized clause structures, known as existential sentences or existential constructions, the main function of which is to express a proposition about the existence or presence of someone or something. Existential constructions have been discussed in the syntax literature because they often manifest noncanonical agreement, case marking, and word order. These constructions have attracted attention in the semantics and pragmatics literature because of the restrictions on definite and quantificational determiners in the so-called existential pivot nominal (the nominal that describes the entity whose existence/presence is asserted or denied in a declarative existential), the restrictions on the so-called coda predicate that appears in the construction in some languages (e.g., “sick” in “There were several people sick”), and their special information structural properties. Existentials often constitute an extension or specialization of expletive, copular, inversion, possessive, or locative constructions, although there is considerable cross-linguistic variation in the details. This article includes references on syntactic, semantic, and pragmatic aspects of the constructions, as well as selected references on specific languages. Many references address more than one aspect of existentials; the classification has been made according to the main focus of the reference or aspect that most distinguishes it from other references in this article. Acquisition/processing studies are not included, nor are, in general, references to the vast related literature on more general aspects of expletive subjects/topics, unaccusativity, or subject inversion.