On the Grammar of Existential Sentences

Abstract

Publisher Summary This chapter discusses grammar of existential sentences. The chapter discusses how existential sentences differ from deictic sentences. The correct analysis of existential sentences shows how they differ from deictic sentences. Lyons recognizes this problem and gives an ingenious account of how there is to be interpreted in existential sentences in such a way as to distinguish them from deictic sentences. However he assumes that in both cases there derives from an adverbial phrase of place. Against this it will be argued here that although the underlying structure of both existential and deictic sentences contain expressions of the form, “Preposition+Noun” Phrase the difference between them centers around the fact that in existential sentences these are not Iocatives—except in some extended sense of the term. Sentences have three essential structural characteristics. The first is that the main verb is “be.” The second is that they contain an indefinite noun phrase. The third is that the indefinite noun phrase is followed by a locative noun phrase.