Another look at definites in existentials

1982 ◽  
Vol 18 (1) ◽  
pp. 73-88 ◽  
Author(s):  
Yael Ziv
Keyword(s):  
Semantic Features ◽  
Existential Sentence ◽  
Existential Sentences

Existential sentences have usually been defined on the basis of their morpho-syntactic characteristics. In English, the term has been used to designate those sentences in which the unstressed, non-deictic there occurs. It has been further observed that most such sentences contain the verb be, an indefinite NP and a locative adverbial following there in that order. Despite this syntactic characterization, however, the term ‘existential sentence’ has been taken, erroneously, to refer to some semantic features of the sentence as well, and so it has been generally assumed that existential sentences always assert the existence of some entity.1

A contrastive analysis of (English) ‘there’ and (Spanish) hay existential sentences

2012 ◽  
Vol 12 (2) ◽  
pp. 139-164
Author(s):  
Javier Pérez-Guerra
Keyword(s):  
Significant Role ◽  
Noun Phrase ◽  
Syntactic Structure ◽  
Contrastive Analysis ◽  
Spoken English ◽  
Existential Sentence ◽  
Specific Description ◽  
Existential Sentences ◽  
Existential Construction ◽  
Selection Of

This study is devoted to the grammatical, semantic and informative analysis of the so-called existential sentence (“There is a girl in the garden” in English, or Hay una niña en el jardín ‘There-is a girl in the garden’ in Spanish) in an attempt to establish a multi-linguistic prototype of the construction. To that end, data from several corpora of contemporary spoken English and Spanish are analysed in a number of ways, including the frequency of this construction in the two languages, the basic elements of its syntactic structure, and the semantic and informative constraints which operate in the existential/presentational construction. This study also deals with the degree of variation which these sentences exhibit and how this affects the selection of the marker of the construction (‘there’, hay), agreement between the marker or the verb and the postverbal noun phrase, the accommodation of additional constituents such as locative phrases or nominal postmodifiers and complements, the so-called indefiniteness restriction, and the compliance with general informative principles to which English and Spanish are claimed to be subject. A corpus-based contrastive methodology leads both to a prototypical and to a language-specific description of the existential construction in English and Spanish, in which the notion of grammatical, semantic and informative versatility plays a significant role.

Teaching and Learning the Awareness of Existence in English Existential Sentences

2020 ◽  
Vol 7 (8) ◽  
pp. 326-342
Author(s):  
Chung Hsien Hsu ◽  
Yung-pin Lu ◽  
Chen-hua Hsueh
Keyword(s):  
Data Analysis ◽  
Teaching And Learning ◽  
Chinese Character ◽  
Chinese Students ◽  
Not Given ◽  
Existential Sentence ◽  
Sentence Construction ◽  
Grammatical Error ◽  
Existential Sentences ◽  
Potential Difficulty

This present study investigates the reasons that cause Chinese students’ difficulties, in learning English existential sentence, there-be structure. A set of questions are designed to examine their awareness of ‘existence’ in both languages. 609 participants attain this study. After data analysis, two findings indicate: (1) Students are used to selecting location as a subject starting an existential sentence which is similar to Chinese syntax, and there-be might be considered of using only when location is not given. (2) With the influence of Chinese syntax, the awareness between the place and the main noun forms because that a thing/object as a subject keeps have / has as its verb could change sentence construction and cannot effectively express the original existence in English. Therefore, this grammatical error stems not only from differences in awareness of existence between languages, but also from different grammar expressions about existence. In addition, in Chinese, existence (there-be) and possession (have/has), are expressed and translated by the only one Chinese character ‘有’. Most teachers normally adopt “have” idea to help interlingual translation to learn EES. However, this teaching might lead to a potential difficulty for students to be aware of existential difference between English and Chinese.

scholarly journals СЕМАНТИКА ПРЕДИКАТІВ МІСЦЕПЕРЕБУВАННЯ В РЕЧЕННЯХ СУЧАСНОЇ УКРАЇНСЬКОЇ МОВИ

2019 ◽  
pp. 115-121
Author(s):  
В. Ф. Жовтобрюх
Keyword(s):  
Time Interval ◽  
Specific Time ◽  
Lexical Meaning ◽  
Existential Sentence ◽  
Existential Sentences ◽  
Categorical Attributes ◽  
The Subject ◽  
Categorical Semantics

In propositions of existence, these predicates are combined with an irreferenced name, whose existence is reported by the sentence. The irreferent name of the subject is not mentioned in the previous text and is entered into the fund of knowledge of the addressee of the broadcast with the possibility of further its characterization. The sentence states the presence of the subject, and the local predicates describe the qualitative signs of the subject of being from different positions. Such communicative load is carried by all verbs, which according to the corresponding logical-grammatical conditions transmit the significance of localization. Despite the fact that the local predicates transmit different lexical meanings, they have common categorical attributes: lack of process value and static. The subject of being remains unchanged during a specific time interval within which the event described occurs. The static sign corresponds most to the ontological nature of existence. Categorical semantics imposes an imprint on the meaning of verbal lexeme. The use of such verbs determines the semantic modifications of existential sentences. The structure of the semantics of various verbs contains components of modifying value, which help to create a figurative picture of existential states. The use of the designated verbal lexeme contributes to the enrichment of the semantics of the existential sentence and the expansion of its expressiveness. Prospects for the study of existential sentences are related to the analysis of those elements of the semantics of the sentence, which are determined by the lexical meaning of the verb in the position of the local predicate.

Semantic Features of Countability in Korean

2009 ◽  
Vol 13 (1) ◽  
pp. 21-38
Author(s):  
Eun Joo Kwak
Keyword(s):  
Semantic Features

Linguocultural aspect of foreign language words of youth jargon

2020 ◽  
Vol 3 (1) ◽  
pp. 42-44
Author(s):  
Malika Zoxirovna Salomova
Keyword(s):  
Foreign Language ◽  
Russian Language ◽  
Semantic Features ◽  
External Borrowing ◽  
Modern Russian

The article is devoted to the problems of analyzing the composition of modern youth jargon. The article outlines the specificity of youth jargon among other socialists of the modern Russian language, gives a description of internal and external borrowing as part of the vocabulary of youth jargon, describes their structural and semantic features.

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