Abstract
Abstract. While expletive there has primarily been studied in the context of the existential construction, it has long been known that some but not all lexical verbs are compatible with there insertion. This paper argues that there insertion can be used to diagnose vPs with no external argument, ruling out transitives, unergatives, and also inchoatives, which are argued to project an event argument on the edge of vP. Based on the tight link between there insertion and low functional structure, I build a case for low there insertion, where the expletive is first merged in the specifier of a verbalizing head v. The low merge position is motivated by a stringently local relationship that holds between there and its associate DP; this relationship plays a crucial role in the interaction of there with raising verbs, where local agreement rules out cases of “too many theres” such as *There seemed there to be a man in the room. An account of these cases in terms of phase theory is explored, in which I ultimately suggest that there must be merged in a nonthematic phasal specifier position.
Highlights
This paper is concerned with the English expletive there
Whenever there is inserted in Spec,TP, the nominative Case assigned by T must target some other nominal in the clause
On the one hand we find predicates like disappear, which do not seem to denote changes of state, and yet reject there-insertion;7 on the other we encounter verbs like bloom, which seem to fall into the change-of-state category and yet can allow there-insertion
Summary
This paper is concerned with the English expletive there. The general subject of expletives needs no introduction; expletive constructions in the world’s languages have motivated an unusually rich and extensive literature throughout the history of generative syntax. In the course of this history, substantial advances have been made in understanding what sorts of expletives are possible, and what expletives of particular types reveal about other features. In the second half of the paper (sections 6-8), I turn to the question of why there should be inserted low, arguing that its low base position is motivated by very strong locality restrictions that hold between there and its “associate” nominal (a shadowy figure in (1a), a train in (1b)). This finding motivates a turn toward the problem of content; in particular, the locality required to hold between there and its associate suggests an Agree relation in terms of some feature(s) borne by there. A consideration of the consequences of this final type of construction for the grammar of expletives concludes our investigation
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