11.1195, Sum: "There" Constructions/Addendum

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LINGUIST List:  Vol-11-1195. Thu May 25 2000. ISSN: 1068-4875.

Subject: 11.1195, Sum: "There" Constructions/Addendum

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1)
Date:  Thu, 25 May 2000 21:36:21 EDT
From:  YukaMakita at aol.com
Subject:  There-constructions

-------------------------------- Message 1 -------------------------------

Date:  Thu, 25 May 2000 21:36:21 EDT
From:  YukaMakita at aol.com
Subject:  There-constructions

For Query: Linguist 11.883

Dear Linguists,

I posted a summary for there-constructions on May 25.
And, I received four more answers and useful comments.
I wish to express my appreciation to the following members
of LINGUIST:

Joost Kremers, Jeff Leer, Asya Pereltsvaig, Tom Carey

The original question and their answers are the followings.

- -<< Question >>---
I'm now interested in there-constructions, especially,

whether the existential there make NO contribution in
interpretation or not.

So, could you judge the following sentences and tell

me semantic differences if any.


(i)   There is a lamp beside the table.

(ii)  Beside the table there is a lamp.

(iii) A lamp is beside the table.


- -<< Answer 1 >>---
Jeff Leer wrote:

(i)   There is a lamp beside the table.

    focus on "a lamp"


(ii)  Beside the table there is a lamp.

    focus on "beside the table"


(iii) A lamp is beside the table.

    no focus, just background information.

    This is the hardest to judge. As some of the others have
    noted, it describes a scene that the observer has never
    encountered, or perhaps finds surprising. It's interesting
    that the woman from the Ozarks rejected it, perhaps because
    it is foreign to native English (Could it be borrowed?).
    To me it has an artistic flair, as the man noted who said it
    would be found in stage directions. But I can envision it used
    in speech, as a kind of metastatement or perhaps more precisely
    a self-conscious attention-getting device.


- -<< Answer 2 >>---
name-unknown <uclebdl at ucl.ac.uk> wrote:

In terms of truth-functional semantics, these sentences are absolutely
identical, I think, but there are of course thematic differences, so they
wouldn't mean exactly the same thing when spoken in context.  I think the
first sentence concentrates your attention on the lamp; the second on the
table; and the third is similar to the first, but with less attention
being drawn to the lamp.


- -<< Answer 3 >>---
Joost Kremers wrote:

I am reminded of Noam Chomsky's most recent paper,
'Derivation by Phase'. (BTW, if you know little or nothing
about generative grammar, don't bother reading this paper.
It requires quite of lot of background information...)
On pages 20-1, he discusses the difference between
(among others) the following sentences:

i   there are many fish expected to be caught
ii  many fish are expected to be caught

He claims that (i) has, as he calls it, ``existential import'',
whereas (ii) does not. It means that when you utter (i), you
presuppose the existence of a large quantity of fish, of which
it is expected that they will be caught. In (ii), however, the
existence of the fish is not presupposed. That means that
(i) can turn out to be false because the fish that were there
were not caught, whereas (ii) can turn out to be false
because the fish simply weren't there.

Another pair of sentences illustrate the point even better, perhaps:

iii there is a building likely to be demolished
iv  a building is likely to be demolished eventually

In (iii), the existence of the building is presupposed, that is,
there is indeed a building, and it is likely that it will be
demolished. (iv), however, has a very different meaning. It is a
generic statement about buildings: it roughly means the same as
``all buildings will probably be demolished eventually''. That is,
(iv) is a general truth, that still holds, even when there are no
buildings at all. (iii) however, can only be true if there is indeed a
building and if that building is indeed likely to be demolished.

Looking at your sentences (i) and (iii):

>(i)   There is a lamp beside the table.
>(iii) A lamp is beside the table.

Extending the analysis, one can say that (i) is the expected
structure, since it implies the existence of a lamp, which is
exactly what one is trying to say. (iii), however, does not
presuppose the existence of any lamp, which is probably why it
was considered so odd by most native speakers that responded.
(iii) might be correct if one wishes to express that it is a
property of lamps that they are beside the table, but that
would be an odd statement to make.


- -<< Answer 4 >>---
Asya Pereltsvaig wrote:

You might want to check the following book:
Birner, Betty J. (1996) The Discourse Function of Inversion
in English, New York: Garland Publishing.

It discusses these sort of sentences very extensively.


- -<< Answer 5 >>---
Tom Carey wrote:

In conversation, I sense it as somehow discourteous to omit
the opening "There is..." when making a declarative statement.

Ex.:
1) Quantum physics  tells us that an elementary particle is
not an object, but a wave function.
[Appropriate in a classroom lecture.]

2) There is a view in modern physics which maintains that.... etc.
[Appropriate in conversation; it covertly suggests that the speaker
is not asserting superiority or dominance in the exchange.

*****
Yuka Makita <YukaMakita at aol.com>

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