Existential Sentences Research Articles

The Representation of Social Media in English Textbook: A Hallidayan Perspective

This Hallidayan transitivity study explores how social media is represented in the reading texts of a nationally issued English textbook for Indonesian year-twelve students. In particular, this study aims to reveal the transitivity system patterns constructed in the reading materials about social media. This study adopted qualitative perspective as the approach and content/text analysis as the method. The data were reading materials of three chapters selected purposely from an English textbook. The reading texts then were analysed into Hallidayan six types of process, namely material, mental, behavioural, verbal, existential, and relational clauses. After that, each process type was further analysed. The findings firstly reveal that material (55%), mental (30%), and relational clauses (12%) appear in sequence as the dominant process types. Other processes were also found in the data but their occurrences are limited, namely 1% for each of behavioural, verbal, and existential clauses. Secondly, the findings expose that each process type is patterned distinctively in representing different issues about social media. It is expected that the findings of this study contribute to how to represent events in English textbooks functionally so that the educational goal set by book can be obtained. Despite its findings, this study relies only on a single book as the data source. Further studies can make use of more data sets.

The Alignment of Verb Ada and Its Existence to Understand the Existential Clause Structure of Balinese

An existential clause is a clause that shows a proposition about the existence or an event. This paper aims to describe the structure of existential clauses, the types of existential clauses, and the constraints of noun phrases that fill the existence elements in Balinese. This study used the descriptive qualitative method. The data used are primary data taken from five Balinese language teachers. The Balinese language teachers elicited the data made by the first teacher. Written data from Balinese stories are also used to assist the oral data. The data analysis technique chosen is comparison, omission, and replacement. Some research results are found in this paper. The core structure of Balinese existential clauses is verb ada + existence, and the extended structure of Balinese existential clauses is verb ada + existence + extension. There are two types of existential clauses in Balinese: bare and extended existential clauses. The definiteness of a noun phrase filling the existence element determines the choice of existential or non-existential clauses. This paper is helpful as a reference for Balinese grammar, which concerns the existential clauses of Balinese.

문학작품을 토대로 한 부정어 동반 There 존재구문 연구 및 교육방안 제시

This study examines the primary function of the ‘There + be(with negatives) structure’ in English, asserting its role in emphasizing the non-existence of a noun in a sentence. Analysis of this structure alongside ‘be(with negatives)’ in literary works such as Black Beauty by Anna Swell, Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen, and the Korean-English translated literature The Vegetarian, translated by Deborah Smith, is conducted. A survey involving three English teachers from Korea and five English native speakers aimed to uncover disparities in perception of these sentence patterns. Findings indicate a minimal occurrence of ‘be(with negatives) sentences’ without ‘there,’ with the ‘be’ verb primarily complementing prepositional phrases rather than emphasizing the absence of a noun. The survey underscores the importance of negative words in determining the appropriate usage of existential sentences, suggesting their pivotal role in ensuring accuracy and contextual appropriateness. While supporting the initial hypothesis, further research with larger sample sizes and rigorous statistical analysis is deemed necessary for conclusive confirmation.

Parameters of antecedent – possessive postcopular anaphor correlation: the case of definiteness effect

The paper aims at finding correlation between possessive postcopular anaphor in English existential there-sentences and its antecedent. English there-sentences provide a site for the phenomenon known as definiteness effect, one of the most controversial and still not fully resolved issues in linguistics today. The current state of this problem determines the relevance of this article. The subject of the study is the relationship of possessive post-сopular noun phrases and their antecedents. So, the features of the definiteness effect are studied in terms of anaphor - antecedent distance. The purpose of the work is to establish some possible patterns of mutual arrangement of these units. The corresponding tasks are the following: collecting data that satisfy the input conditions; identifying the antecedents of a possessive anaphor; establishing the distance between the anaphor and the antecedent. The British National Corpus is the source for the research material. The novelty of the study lies in the very formulation of the problem, which has not been previously raised in the scientific literature, as well as in the results obtained. The findings are the following: the authors have identified certain types of antecedents united in enlarged groups, namely, explicitly expressed antecedents and antecedents without verbal embodiment. The detected distance between antecedents and their possessive anaphors is fixed as minimal, within the framework of neighbouring sentences, in some cases tending to zero value. A correlation is found between the type of antecedent, its location and distance from the possessive anaphor. The authors assume that such distance may serve as an additional licensing stipulation ensuring the admission of possessive noun phrases to the postcopular position of English existential sentences.

THE VERB ’STAND’ IN THE LOCATIVE SENTENCES OF THE SLOVAK LANGUAGE

Our article aims to present the rules of use of the Slovak quasi-copula meaning ’stand’. The study is part of a series of research carried out in the Uralistics Research Group of the HUN-REN Research Centre for Linguistics. In Slovak, as in Hungarian and several other languages, the verb ’stand’ has been grammaticalized and has become a quasi-copula used in locative and existential sentences. In the framework of the analysis, we present the list of the objects in the locative sentences whose location is typically described using the quasi-copula ’stand’. Our results show that, in addition to the geometric properties of the object (height, prominent verticality), the aspect of functionality is also very important. In general, ’stand’ expresses if the orientation of the object is such that the object is capable of performing its role, i.e. in Slovak locative sentences, a visual similarity is not the only basis for the presence of the posture verb ’stand’ as a verbal element.

Syntax in transition

This paper is an investigation of a language contact phenomenon currently taking place in Aanaar (Inari) Saami, an indigenous minority language of Finland. Aanaar Saami people have been in contact with Finnish speakers for centuries, so much so that the language community has become bilingual. This has resulted in the borrowing of both numerous Finnish loanwords and even some syntactic constructions into Aanaar Saami and seems to herald a larger change in the language. The present study focuses on a type of syntactic change called differential argument marking, which is examined in three Aanaar Saami clause types: transitive clauses, existential clauses, and passive verb clauses. Finnish exhibits complex argument marking, characterized by a total–partial distinction, whereas traditional Aanaar Saami does not have differential argument marking in subjects or objects. However, new Aanaar Saami shows multiple emergent types of differential argument marking that vary between individual speakers and, while clearly influenced by Finnish, do not always mirror their Finnish equivalents one-to-one. This, and the observation that differential argument marking is non-existent in older language materials, suggests that the phenomenon is recentFinnish influence.

Similarities of Jonsson spectra’s classes

The study of syntactic and semantic properties of a first-order language, generally speaking, for incomplete theories, is one of the urgent problems of mathematical logic. In this article we study Jonsson theories, which are satisfied by most classical examples from algebra and which, generally speaking, are not complete. A new and relevant method for studying Jonson theories is to study these theories using the concepts of syntactic and semantic similarities. The most invariant concept is the concept of syntactic similarity of theories, because it preserves all the properties of the theories under consideration. The main result of this article is the fact that any perfect Jonson theory which are complete for existential sentences, is syntactically similar to some polygon theory (S-polygon, where S is a monoid). This result extends to the corresponding classes of Jonsson theories from the Jonsson spectrum of an arbitrary model of an arbitrary signature.

The structures of Malay language existential sentences

The structures of Malay language existential sentences

The syntax of two existential unaccusative verbs in Polish

Abstract The paper examines the syntax of two unaccusative verbs in Polish – ubyć. perf/ubywać.imperf ‘to disappear, to decrease’ and przybyć. perf/przybywać.imperf ‘to arrive, to increase’ – with a view to shedding light on the structure of existential unaccusatives. The two above-mentioned verbs appear in two distinct paradigms – the disappearance/motion verb and the existential one – both of which are taken to represent subtypes of existential structure. Existential verbs are treated here as monadic predicates with a single small clause complement, whose internal structure may vary, depending on the predicate. The two existential unaccusatives analysed in the paper may select two different types of small clause complement, which are different from the small clause selected by the existential być ‘to be’. Thus, Polish seems to make use of three different small clause structures in existential clauses. The paper also provides evidence that in Polish, like in English, existential unaccusatives are structurally distinct from change of state unaccusatives, and thus in the two languages there is more than one way to be structurally unaccusative. The account bears on the analysis of the genitive of negation in Polish, especially the issue of its inapplicability to existential unaccusatives versus its presence with the existential być ‘to be’.

Existential negation modulates inhibitory control processes and impacts recognition memory. Evidence from ERP and source localisation data

ABSTRACT It has recently been proposed that comprehension of negation reuses the inhibitory control mechanisms. However, this Reusing Inhibition for Negation (RIN) hypothesis has mostly been confirmed with imperative sentences. The current study examined whether comprehension of negated existential sentences, which are purely declarative, also shares neural resources with inhibitory control processes. Participants read affirmative or negative existential sentences while performing an embedded Go/NoGo task, followed by a recognition probe to test the impact of negation on words activation. Relative to affirmative sentences, negation increased the P3 amplitude for NoGo trials, with estimated sources in the inhibition-related medial and dorsolateral areas in the prefrontal and parietal cortices. These results indicate that existential negation also shares neural mechanisms with inhibitory control, extending the RIN hypothesis. Furthermore, recognising negated words took longer and decreased the readiness potential of the responses compared to affirmed words, suggesting reduced accessibility of negated words in working memory.

The Polysemy of the Verb "wystarczyć"/"wystarczać" [to suffice] in Polish

This paper examines the syntax and semantics of the unaccusative verb wystarczać/wystarczyć ‘to suffice’ in Polish. We argue that this verb is polysemous. Besides its idiosyncratic meaning ‘to suffice’, it may also mean ‘to be enough’ or ‘to have enough’. The three above-mentioned meanings of the verb wystarczać/wystarczyć are associated with three different syntactic structures. The idiosyncratic meaning of this verb is found with the nominative argument. The second meaning of the verb surfaces in existential clauses with the genitive DP and an optional locative PP. The third - possessive meaning - arises when the verb appears with the dative possessor and the genitive theme.

EMPTY SUBJECT (EXISTENTIAL ‘THERE’) AND CONCORD IN ENGLISH AND ALBANIAN LANGUAGE

<p><span>Empty subject expressed with existential ‘there’ has confounded English linguists for a longer period of time. While some grammarians do not consider existential ‘there’ as real subject, Jespersen was the first to recognize and call it a ‘lesser subject’. Huddleston and Quirk argue that ‘there’ is subject of existential sentences. On the other hand, there is no subject when we translate simple sentences from English to Albanian language with existential ‘there’. In fact, such translated sentences start with a predicate. Existential ‘there’ and concord between the subject and predicate is also analyzed in this study. There are different examples where existential ‘there’ as subject takes a singular or a plural verb depending on the object in English language. There is a similar situation with the predicate in Albanian language when objects have an influence on the verb number. There are some differences, however, when existential ‘there’ is not in concord with some translated sentences in Albanian language. The second part of this study is focused on a questionnaire filled by students who had to choose between two given options, a singular or a plural verb with existential ‘there’ as the subject of the sentence for translated sentences from English to Albanian language.</span></p><p><span><strong><span>Keywords: </span></strong><span>Empty subject, existential ‘<em>there</em>’, verb, concord, English language, Albanian language.</span></span></p>

Functioning of Existential Clauses Across the Stages of Narrative in ‘A house of pomegranates’, by Oscar Wilde

This paper aims to identify the functions prototypical existential clauses (there-be construction) may perform across the stages of narratives in a small corpus comprising A house of pomegranates, a collection of short stories by Oscar Wilde. The analysis draws upon Systemic-Functional Linguistics as theoretical framework for the concepts of existential clause and stages of narrative and builds upon Corpus Linguistics as a method of collecting and preparing data. After finding the instances of prototypical existential clauses and tagging the corresponding stages, the functions of the existential clauses in the narratives were identified. Findings show that existential clauses may occur in any stage of a narrative and perform five functions, namely, describing, introducing, listing, pointing, and pondering. Describing and pondering are the most frequent functions in the corpus. The describing function is mainly related to the Orientation and Resolution stages, while the pondering function mostly relates to the Complication and Evaluation stages.

MANDARIN EXISTENTIAL CONSTRUCTIONS AND THE PREDICATE RESTRICTION

In this paper I raise questions about the predicate restriction, which claims that only stage-level predicates may appear in the coda of an existential sentence. I present novel data from Mandarin to show that the predicate restriction is not universal: It is systematically absent in Mandarin. I propose that the reason behind its absence is syntactic. Specifically, I show that the English existential coda cannot be as large as a TP, while the Mandarin existential coda contains a full TP. This, in combination with Diesing’s (1992) Mapping Hypothesis, which says individual-level predicates need to be in TPs, naturally derives the difference between existentials of the English-type and those of the Mandarin-type. Finally, I show that the Mandarin existential coda is not a relative clause, despite being a full clause. Thus, this paper seeks to attain two purposes: (i) to bring attention to the possibility of violations of the predicate restriction, which has largely been thought to be universal; and (ii) to make a first attempt at explaining why the predicate restriction is absent in Mandarin.

The Use of the Existential Sentences in the Text

The article deals with the use of the existential sentences in the text. Existential sentences occupy a special place in the typology of the sentence. Depending on the structure of the given language existential sentences differ. This article is the continuation of the author's article, named “Some features of existential sentences in languages belonging to different language systems” [18], that's why there is no need to give further explanation about the nature of existential sentences. Here we are going to find out factors which influence the use of existential sentences. Considering theoretical and practical aspects of the investigation the author uses the materials of Azerbaijani, English and Russian.

The Use of the Existential Sentences in the Text

The Use of the Existential Sentences in the Text

On the Syntax of Existential Sentences in Standard Arabic

Existential sentences are noncanonical sentences that express the (non)existence of an entity. They have not received considerable attention in Standard Arabic (SA). This paper, thus, aims to propose a syntactic analysis of SA existential sentences. We first discuss the key grammatical properties of the four syntactic items, namely the copular verb, the expletive hunaaka, the pivot, and the coda phrase, that comprise the SA existential sentence. The expletive and the pivot are obligatory items in the structure, whereas the copular verb and the coda are optional. In our proposed analysis, we assume that the expletive is inserted in the Spec-TP to satisfy the EPP feature on T. We argue for the presence of a predicate phrase headed by Pred which hosts the pivot in its specifier and takes a null existential predicate as its complement. The fact that the expletive must precede the pivot and the locality requirement of the predication relation support locating the pivot in the Spec-PredP. We also assume that the coda is an adjunct, which is supported by its optionality and its inability to function as an NP. The conclusions reached may contribute to the ongoing discussion of existential constructions by presenting the perspective of SA.

A Stylistic Study of Patterns of fronting and Postponing in Charles Dickens's Hard Times

Varying sentence length and patterns results in a natural , fluid form ofwriting . Writing should be pleasing to readers . If all of the sentences follow thesame pattern , however , the writing and rhythm become boring and dull .Creating a variety of sentence patterns not only holds a reader’s interest , which ,after all , is the purpose of writing , but it also reflects the mind’s ability to thinkcreatively and complexly . There are many options to change the simplesentences into more sophisticated sentences . Therefore , this paper is devoted toanalyzes the main marked structures of fronting and postposing in Hard Times;written by Charles Dickens in 1854.These structures are passive voice , left-dislocation , cleft sentences , Extraposition , existential sentences , pseudo-cleftsentences , and reversed — pseudo cleft sentences .It aims at discovering thestylistic realization of these structures and their coincidence with the importantevents in the novel, especially certain specific communicative implications canbe revealed by these structures. So instead of having chosen independentexamples coming from a computational corpus , we decide to analyze thesestructures in a novel written by Charles Dickens . With the analysis of thecorpus of examples, it will be proved that the use of these anomalous syntacticprocesses points out a clear contrast with the normal order of the Englishsentence i.e., these syntactic processes clearly break SVO

Парадигма неизосемических высказываний с семантикой качественной характеризации как пример асимметрии синтаксического знака

Expressive expressions of qualitative characterization as non-isosemic constructions coincide in form with existential sentences. Existential construction is used metaphorically: gde est’ chto (existence) → v kom / chem est’ kakoy-to priznak (qualitative characterization), formed by non-isosemic filling of its positions. Thus, the lexeme of locative semantics is replaced by a combination v kom / v chem (in whom/in what), with the possible choice of prepositional-case forms limited to the only form of the prepositional case with the preposition v (in). The subject and predicate positions in isosemic and non-isosemic existential structures are replaced by words of different denotative classes. In the sentences of existence, the subject is expressed by nouns, denoting objects of an external, sensually perceived world. The sentences of qualitative characterization have their subject position occupied by words of qualitative semantics denoting distinctive, permanent qualities, resulting in the semantics of existence drifting towards qualitative characterization. Thus, the verb est’ (to be) as the predicate of existence does not literally express existence but performs a service function. Unlike the isosemic existential constructions, non-isosemic constructions of qualitative characterization lack variation in person and number, with the isosemic verb position being obligatory and the structure having a non-variative form. Non-isosemic expressions have additional semantic components: non-categorical designation of a feature, uncertainty of the author of the statement about the characteristics of the subject, and low trait manifestation degree. With certain restrictions on how the subject and predicate positions are filled, the non-isosemic structure features additional meanings: modus, evaluative, expressive, intensity values, etc.

Коммуникативная вариативность бытийной типовой синтаксической структуры в сургутском диалекте хантыйского языка

This paper considers the communicative variation in the Surgut dialect of Khanty, one of the indigenous languages of Siberia. A typical existential syntactic structure comprises three elements, to be referred to here as “subject,” “localizer,” and “predicate.” The prototypical meaning of this structure can be represented by simple existential sentences. The analysis covers 200 realizations of this structure sampled from a collection of texts representing different genres and idioms of the Surgut dialect. Four main variants of the structure are identified, taking into account both the constituent order and intonation structure. The realizations are grouped under the context in which they are used and their function in the text. These groups represent several distinct communicative situations in which the structure concerned is commonly used: discovering an object when observing a visible area, establishing the time, place, and main characters at the beginning of a text, switching attention to a new object, and others. These situations are grouped into three main situations determined by the position of the main focus on the subject, localizer, or predicate. Each main situation is associated with a specific communicative variant, in which the focal element is placed in such a way as to be emphasized intonationally. The realizations with pronominal adverbs in the localizer position are considered separately. It is in these cases that the focal subject causes two communicative variants that appear to be interchangeable, as no direct correlation between these communicative variants and the types of communicative situations has been found.