27.2554, Disc: About the construction of ''NP there be''

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LINGUIST List: Vol-27-2554. Fri Jun 10 2016. ISSN: 1069 - 4875.

Subject: 27.2554, Disc: About the construction of ''NP there be''

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Date: Fri, 10 Jun 2016 10:17:40
From: Takanori Kojima [goodtobehere117 at gmail.com]
Subject: About the construction of ''NP there be''

 
I'm a graduate school student, majoring in English linguistics. Specifically,
I studied ''Existential there construction''. Recently, I used The Penn
Corpora of Historical English to find something new. my node and query is like
this; 

(1) node : IP-MAT query: (EX exists)

When I applied this node and query to PPCEME2, which I had further seperated
into 4 parts, such as the periods of M1, M2, M3, M4, there are only 158
examples in M1 and M2 together. Then, when I checked these data one by one, I
found the construction which seems strange from my view. The examples are;

(2)from M1
a.          Monie oðere     þer     beoð   [þe  comeð of weole…]

            many other     there    were      that  come of wealth…

(133 ID CMANCRIW,II.149.2019))
b.          and oðer  unriht  inoh.     þere beð ollende word…

            and other wrong enough  there is   ollende word…

(3)from M2
a.      Vor lite uolk    þer   byeþ    [þet by diligent ine þet …]

       for little folk there were     that by diligent in that …

(CMAYENBI,32.535)
b.      Ac zeuen principals doles   þer    byeþ.  [þet byeþ ase zeue boʒes
þet…]

       But seven principals deals there    were    that were as seven boys
that…

(CMAYENBI,17.252)

these sentences seem strange in that all these associate noun phrases(NP)
precede ''there be'', and furthermore, the kind of associate NPs which precede
''there be'' seems determined. According to my investigation, there are 11
examples like these constructions. Of all these examples. 9 examples are
quantifed NP, and 1 example is the phrase including ''(an)other'', and so on.
When I reported these data in my class presentation, a reviewer said ''can't
these sentences really be available in the present day? You should confirm
these sentences are surely incorrect today.'' That's why I would like you
native speakers to assess whether these kinds of constructions can't be
available in present English. I'd appreciate your cooporations.



Linguistic Field(s): Historical Linguistics

Subject Language(s): English (eng)



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