revisiting the canonical existential clause in english...ku leuven abstract 1 this article...

Leuven Working Papers in Linguistics 36 | vol. 6 | 2017 96

Revisiting the canonical existential clause in English

Kristin Davidse

KU Leuven

Abstract1

This article challenges the locative interpretation of English canonical existentials, according to which

existential there is analysed as an adverb designating an abstract location, which is often further

specified by an adjunct predicating a specific location of the Existent NP, as in Lyons (1975). It further

elaborates the grammatical semantics proposed in Davidse (1999), also nuancing and correcting some

aspects of that earlier account relating to: (i) the quantification restriction proposed by Milsark (1976,

1977), (ii) the grammatical class and semantics of existential there, and (iii) the grammatical functions

that may be fulfilled by adjuncts. I propose that the clause nucleus of canonical existentials expresses

quantification of the newly introduced instantiaton of the type specifications conveyed by the Existent

NP. This semantic target is restricted by the specifications of the search domain provided by the VP,

any sentence adjuncts that may be present and relevant elements from the co-text or context.

1. Introduction

This article will focus on the English existential construction that is generally viewed as the unmarked

or canonical type. This type contains the verb be and one obligatory participant, the Existent. In Present-

day English, it typically features existential there and it often contains an adjunct, which may specify

place (1) or time (2) as well as other notions, such as matter (3) or purpose (4).

(1) There were two usherettes in the foyer. (LDC)2

(2) Over the years there had been many notes. (WB)

(3) There are no smiles about this bill. (WB)

(4) For good results, there are some guidelines you should follow.

(http://www.worldpainter.net/trac/search?q=for+good+results)

Most accounts of the representational semantics of this construction have interpreted it as basically

locative (e.g. Anderson 1971, Fillmore 1968, Lyons 1975, Bolinger 1977, Kirsner 1979, Fawcett 1987,

1 The research reported on in this article was made possible by the research project G.0560.11, awarded by the Research Foundation – Flanders (FWO). I thank Tine Breban, Gerard O’Grady, Ngum Meyuhnsi Njende, Lobke Ghesquière and An Van linden for discussion and joint research projects relevant to this study. 2 Following each attested example its source is indicated between brackets: Internet url, reference to the literature, or corpus. The following abbreviations are used for corpora: WordbanksOnline (WB), Leuven Drama Corpus (LDC), Bergen Corpus of London Teenage Language (COLT), Oxford English Dictionary (OED).


2011, 2012). One of the best known versions is Lyons’, which holds that “the predication of existence

involve[s] the extraction from the locative phrase of only the deictically neutral locative component and

the copying […] of this in the pre-posed there” (Lyons 1975: 73). In other words, in an example like

(1), there is analysed as an adverb designating an abstract location, while the locative phrase “makes a

predication” (1975: 73) about the central NP.

In earlier work (1992, 1999) I have challenged this specific locative interpretation and advocated

an alternative account of the grammatical semantics of English canonical existentials. I proposed that

they represent the quantified instantiation of a type of entity within a spatio-temporal domain of

instantiation. For instance, (1) states that, of the type ‘usherette’, two instances occurred at that particular

time in the past in that foyer. This semantic account, I argued, covers the whole range of examples of

canonical existentials, including ones like (2)–(3), in which the Existent NP is a nominalization, which

designates reified events, which are instantiated in a specific temporal domain indicated by such

linguistic means as the tense of the VP and adjuncts of temporal extent like over the years in (2).

Existentials with negative quantifiers like (3) are particularly problematic for the locative analysis, as

‘no’ things cannot be located anywhere, but they are naturally covered by my analysis: they express that

there is no instantiation of a specific type in the spatio-temporal domain in question. I linked these

semantics to grammatical characteristics of the canonical existential in the following way:

(i) the Existent NP has obligatory absolute quantification, which measures the instantiation

of the relevant type;

(ii) this quantified instantiation is anticipated by existential there, which is a cataphoric

indefinite enclitic pronoun;

(iii) the adjunct, if present, typically functions not as a predicative complement but as a

modifier of the whole clause nucleus, which in addition with the tense of the VP,

delineates the domain of instantiation;

(iv) as a result, the meaning of existential be is construed as ‘there ‘occurring’ a quantified

instantiation of a type in a domain’, not as ‘predicating location at a specific place of an

entity’.

In this article, I will revisit this functional-grammatical analysis. While maintaining the basics of the

earlier account, I will nuance and correct some points of it, arguing that

(i) Milsark’s (1976, 1977) formulation of the absolute quantification restriction on the

Existent NP needs to be modified;

(ii) existential there is more plausibly viewed as a definite enclitic pronoun;

(iii) besides functioning as sentential adjunct, prepositional phrases or adverbs can function

in secondary predication or specification relations.


The discussion of these three issues will be dealt with in this order in the following sections. In the

conclusion, I will incorporate the proposed modifications in the revised semantic description.

2. Quantification of the Existent NP

In the literature, it has often been observed (Jespersen 1924, Quirk et al. 1985, Lyons 1975, López-

Couso 2011) that an indefiniteness restriction applies to the Existent NP in canonical existentials, as

illustrated by (5)–(6).

(5) There’s a lady/someone in the house.

(6) There are Ø/some people in the house.

If the Existent NP in these examples is replaced by a definite NP, as in (7)–(8), the resulting clauses are

ungrammatical on the canonical, non-enumerative reading.

(7) There’s the/that/his/John’s landlady in the house.

(8) There’s John/him/John and Paul/them in the house.

Examples (7) and (8) can be contextualized, but only as enumerative existentials, i.e. as utterances with

specificational meaning, which list one or more values corresponding to the presupposed variable. Thus,

(7) and (8) could be used in reply to a question such as Who’s there (that’s present) in the house? We

will return to the possibility of the adjunct describing a variable in Section 4.

Milsark (1976, 1977) proposed that, in addition to the indefiniteness restriction, there is a

quantificational selection restriction on the Existent NP in canonical existentials. In his view, the

determiners of Existent NPs must either express or imply absolute quantification of the instances

designated by the Existent NP. Absolute quantifiers indicate the “size of the set of entities” (Milsark

1977: 23), or in Langacker’s (1991: 83) convergent definition, they provide a “direct description of

magnitude”. Langacker (2016: 9) specifies that absolute quantifiers measure a set or mass against a

scale, which may have discrete values, e.g. two in (1) above, or which may be continuous, e.g. many in

(2). Absolute quantification is conveyed implicitly by the indefinite article, e.g. (5), which denotes one

instance of a type, or the zero-article with plural count or uncount nouns, e.g. (6), which in the paradigm

of indefinite articles has the value of indicating a set or mass of ‘some’ non-specific magnitude. The

absolute quantification restriction as formulated by Milsark entails that relative quantifiers, such as all

or most, cannot occur in canonical existentials, as illustrated by (9’), in which the cardinal number five

of the original is replaced by all/most. Relative quantifiers such as all or most “must always be

understood with reference to [italics K.D.] a set of some cardinality” (Milsark 1977: 23). That is, they

make a quantitative assessment relative to an identifiable reference set (Langacker 1991: 83), which


comparative relation may be explicitly expressed by inserting of the between quantifier and noun, as

illustrated in (19).

(9) There are five weak spots in the human body. (LDC)

(9’) *There are most/all (of the) weak spots in the human body.

In earlier work (Davidse 1992, 1999) I subscribed to Milsark’s absolute quantification restriction on the

Existent NPs in canonical existentials. However, close investigation of attested data shows that this

restriction has to be reformulated in two ways.

Firstly, Njende, Davidse & Ghesquière (2016) checked with focused querying of Wordbanks

data whether the core relative quantifiers, none/some/most/all (of the) (Langacker 2016: 6) are really not

attested in canonical existentials. It was found that the relative quantifier most does occur in existentials

such as (10), even though highly infrequently. Likewise, we find the relative use of some in (11), which

designates “no particular proportion” (Langacker 2016: 7) of the reference set, and the relative use of

none in (12), which indicates a “zero proportion” (Langacker 2016: 7) of the reference set.

(10) The Queen, in a simple yellow outfit contrasting with her 1953 regalia, and arriving by

car instead of carriage, entered Westminster Abbey to the sound of trumpets and a

rousing hymn. The church has been used for coronations for 900 years. Also there were

most of the royal family – and 1,000 members of the public who won tickets to the

service.

(11) Yeah, we had to watch videos <F0X/> Videos. <F0X/> Yeah, and she had loads of these

little parties and like sort of like there were some of the boys who weren’t popular (WB)

(12) I know the window. There were none of the servants about to delay me. (WB)

The one quantificational restriction that Njende, Davidse & Ghesquière (2016) found has to be

maintained after focused corpus searches3 involves the universal relative quantifier all. The data

containing existential there + be + all that we inspected only contained NPs with uses such as all sorts

of + noun, in which the whole expression is used as a hyperbolic absolute quantifier, meaning ‘very

many’(Brems & Davidse 2010: 188)4, as in (15).

(13) *There were all of the royal family.

(14) *There were all of the boys who weren’t popular.

3 The data yielded by the following extractions were vetted: EX’s all (481), EX is all (89), EX are all (603), EX were all (330), i.e. a total of 1503 tokens. 4 In the quantifier uses of all sorts of, the meaning component ‘subtypes, varieties’ may be present to different degrees, but the overall meaning remains ‘many, and of many sorts’, i.e. absolute, not relative, universal quantification.


(15) you only got given one meal a day and there were all sorts of maggots crawling in your

food (WB)

Secondly, Milsark also subsumes partitive uses of absolute quantifiers under his broad definition of

relative quantification, i.e. non-specific quantifiers such as MANY/FEW (of the) and cardinal numbers

such as TWO (of the). If these are used relatively, i.e. to compare the actually designated subset with a

reference set, then they need to be stressed and it should be possible to make the relation to the reference

set explicit by a periphrastic postmodifier with of the (Milsark 1977: 22–23). On this definition, the

Existent NP does take such relative uses of absolute quantifiers, although, once again, they are much

less frequent than absolute quantifiers proper. In (16) the Existent NP designates a subset of two of the

reference set ‘the biggest names in Berlin’. In (17), the relevant reference set is given in the preceding

discourse, ‘of the sixty men I had started out to war from Harwich with’ and the Existent NP measures

the subset of those left as numbering three.

(16) The cast was first-rate. Along with Helene Weige, there were two of the biggest names

in Berlin, Ernst Busch and Alexander Granach. (WB)

(17) Of the sixty men I had started out to war from Harwich with, there were only three left

(A Broken World: Letters, Diaries and Memories of the Great War, edited by Sebastian

Faulks & Hope Wolf, Vintage, 267).

It follows that Milsark’s hypothesized ban on relative quantifiers in non-enumerating existentials has to

be reformulated as pertaining to universal relative quantification only, which may be conveyed by all,

e.g. (13)–(14), or which may be implied by definite determiners, as in (7). Milsark (1977: 9) suggested

that the functions as a universal quantifier, which in Davidse (2004: 516) was related to the ‘inclusive’

(Hawkins 1978) implicature of NPs with the. They imply a comparison between the actually designated

instances and the contextually relevant reference set, with the two coinciding (see also Langacker 1991:

98; Gisborne 2012). Demonstrative and possessive determiners, and the genitive may likewise refer to

the unique instance or the maximal instantiation of the type in the context (Langacker 1991: 110), thus

implying universal quantification. The impossibility of these definite determiners in canonical

existentials is illustrated in (7).

What conclusions can we draw, then, about the semantics of canonical existentials from the

distribution of quantification types in the Existent NP? The first and most important point is that these

existentials are always concerned with quantification of the instantiation designated by the Existent NP,

which is mostly expressed explicitly, e.g. there were two usherettes in the foyer (1), there were most of

the royal family (10), but may also be implied by the indefinite article, as in (5)–(6). Crucially,

quantification may also take the form of stating that there is no instantiation of the relevant type, as in

(3) above.


But why the ban on universal relative quantification? This has, in my view, to be explained by

the interaction between the quantification and the indefiniteness restriction. The latter is motivated by

the fact that canonical existentials always introduce new instances of the relevant type specifications.

They are presentational constructions, as has often been noted (e.g. Breivik 1981, 1989). Existent NPs

with a definite determiner are banned because their referents are presupposed identifiable. I propose that

Existent NPs with the universal relative quantifier all are also banned because they involve a pragmatic

form of identifiability (Davidse 2004: 522). Knowing that all the instances in the current discourse

context are referred to comes down to having mental contact with that instantial set.

In conclusion, in this section we have seen that the quantification conveyed by the Existent NP

is an essential semantic component of canonical existentials. These quantifiers are mostly absolute, in

which case they measure the instantiation of the relevant type specifications directly against an implied

scale. They may also be non-universal relative quantifiers, in which case they quantify a subset of a

reference set.

3. Existential there

3.1. Introduction

It is generally accepted that existential there derives in some way from the demonstrative locative adverb

there (OED XVII, 905). Beyond this, there is fundamental disagreement. On the one hand, there are

authors who maintain that existential there has a locative meaning (e.g. Bolinger 1977: 91–92), and

some even hold that as subject of existential clauses it is still an adverb (e.g. Lyons 1975), as discussed

in the Introduction. On the other hand, there are authors, including myself, who hold that existential

there does not have a locative meaning and that it is a nominal (e.g. Breivik 1981, 1983, 1989). In earlier

work (Davidse 1999: 247–248), I suggested that the meaning of existential there has some relation to

the pointing sense of there found with prepositions as in (18), where there points at entities designated

by an indefinite NP, trees. I argued that existential there similarly points at the entities designated by

the indefinite Existent NP; it does not have any locative meaning and does not point at locations

designated by adjuncts. I proposed that existential there was an indefinite enclitic pronoun, but, in doing

so, I confused the definiteness status of the phoric item (there) with that of the NP pointed at, a confusion

cautioned against by Bech (1952: 7).

(18) He runneth up trees and his desire is to sit there on the tops thereof. (Cockeram III

Ignavus 1623, OED)

In this section, I will revisit the issue of existential there more systematically, now arguing that an

analysis of the adverbial and pronominal paradigms in which there participates show existential there

to be a definite pronoun. The argument will develop two lines. First, I will present a synchronic account

of Dutch existential er. Dutch is unique among Germanic languages in having morphologized the


phonological reduction of daar, its source (Bech 1952). This makes existential er more immediately

recognizable than the merely phonologically reduced existential there in English, even though careful

distributional analysis is still necessary to distinguish existential, pronominal, er from the other

prononominal and the adverbial uses of er. Secondly, I will show how the paradigms in which er

participates in Dutch are parallel to those in which reduced there ([ðə]) participates in English. The focus

will be mainly on historical data, which show that existential there and the pronominal uses of there

found with prepositions merged at around the same time in Old English.

The structure of this section is as follows. First, we will look at the development of existential

clauses in Old English, when the earliest form, which had the Existent NP as subject, gradually came to

be replaced by variants with existential there and it as subject (Section 3.2). Secondly, I will turn to

Dutch and give a synchronic analysis of the adverbial paradigm containing hier (‘here’), daar (‘there’)

and er (reduced ‘there’), and the pronominal paradigm containing hier (‘here’), daar (‘there’) and er

(reduced ‘there’) with meanings proportional with deze (‘this’), die (‘that’) and het (‘it’). From the whole

system I will derive the grammatical and semantic value of existential er and het, for as in English, some

varieties of Dutch have existential het (Section 3.3). Thirdly, I will set out the parallel pronominal

systems in English and their emergence in Old English. This will allow me to situate the emergence of

existential there and it discussed in Section 3.2 in its broader systemic context, which motivates my

proposal to view existential there and it as realizing weak entity deixis, pointing to the instances of the

relevant entity-type being introduced and quantified in canonical existentials.

3.2. The emergence of existential clauses with there and it

As convincingly argued by a number of authors, all grammatical tests for identifying the subject of

English clauses single out there in existentials, such as tags (e.g. Halliday 1985: 73, 130), subject-finite

inversion (Breivik 1981: 5), and raising (Lakoff 1987: 546–549), as illustrated by (19).

(19) a. There is a car in the garage, isn’t there?

b. Is there a car in the garage?

c. There is believed to be a car in the garage.

Breivik (1981: 4–8) has further argued that existential there’s subject function makes a strong case for

regarding it as a nominal, rather than an adverbial. He notes that existential there, which is

phonologically reduced and enclitic to the VP, is excluded from precisely those adjunct positions in

which we find the demonstrative adverbs here and there, as shown by (20) and (21).

(20) Your car is there/here. / There/Here is your car, isn’t it?

(21) *A car is there. / There is a car, isn’t it?


Breivik holds that existential there was a nominal element already in Old English but that it first

functioned as an empty topic (Breivik & Swan 2000: 22), which was re-analysed as an empty subject

with the change from Old English (henceforth OE), as a verb-second language into a subject-verb

language in Middle English (henceforth ME). Syntax-wise, Breivik stresses, with Quirk & Wren (1957:

94) and Traugott (1992: 218), and contra Mitchell (1985: 625), the non-adverbial nature of existential

there from its earliest appearance in the written records of English, locating its split from spatial

demonstrative there in earlier times. Breivik & Swan (2000: 21–22) thus do not follow Mitchell &

Lopéz-Cousu (2011) in their claim that existential there in an OE example like (22) still had greater

demonstrative force such that the adjunct betweonan him could be viewed as further specifying the

location pointed at by þær.

(22) þær bith swythe mycel gewinn betweonan him (Visser 1970: 52–53 §66)

‘there was so much conflict between them’

As documented by Breivik (1989), the transition from OE to ME (1070–1225) presents us with three

main types of existential clauses: the first, and by far the predominant, type in OE features only the

Existent NP, as in (23)–(24); the second type has existential there (25)–(26), and the third type has

existential it (27)–(28). All three types manifested the two main verb-second orders of OE: either subject

– verb, as in (23), (25) and (27), or X – verb – subject, which occurred in yes/no-questions as well as in

clauses with fronted adjuncts or particles, as in (24), (26) and (28).

(23) Two kinne festing beð

‘Two kinds of fasting are’ (1070–1225) (Breivik 1989: 46)

(24) on þis niht beð fowuer niht wecches

‘In this night are four night-watches’ (1070–1225) (Breivik 1989: 46)

(25) If ðar cumþ ani þoht oðer ani word a godes half

‘if there comes any thought or any word on behalf of God’ (1070–1225) (Breivik 1989:

47)

(26) for nis þær na steuene bituhhe þe fordemde bute wumme

‘For there is no voice between the damned but woe me’ (1070–1225) (Breivik 1989:

47)

(27) Ac hit bieð sume ðe to michel þar of þenceð

‘But it are some who think too much of them’ (1070–1225) (Breivik 1989: 47)

(28) Is hit lytel tweo þæt

‘is it little doubt that’ (late 9th cent, King Ælfred tr. Gregory Pastoral Care, Epil. 467)

(Mitchell 1985: I, 625)


To get an idea of the quantitative distribution of the three types of existential in OE, Van linden &

Davidse (2014) carried out a pilot study of constructions with existential matrices expressing the

presence or absence of modal notions such as doubt, need and chance with regard to the proposition

expressed in the complement clause. Even though examples of this type are frequently cited in historical

accounts of the grammar of existentials (e.g. Visser 1970, Mitchell 1985), they have so far been

neglected in corpus-based work on existentials. The three types, (i) there-/it-less, (ii) with there, and

(iii) with it, are illustrated in (29)–(31). Exhaustive extractions were made from the York-Toronto-

Helsinki Parsed Corpus of Old English Prose (YCOE) on tweo (‘doubt’), wen (‘chance’), thearf (‘need’)

and neod (‘need’). The distribution of the three types over the periods of OE is given in Table 1.

(29) Wen is þæt þu gemete sumne þe þe gemiltsige.

‘A chance is that you meet someone who will show mercy to you.’ (YCOE, 950–1050)

(30) þa næs þær nænig tweo, þæt hit nealæhte þara forðfore, þe þær gecigde wæron.

‘then there was no doubt that it drew near to the death of them who were named there.’

(YCOE, 1050–1150)

(31) ða cwæð he: For ðæm hit is nan tweo þæt ða goodan beoð symle waldende, & þa yflan

nabbað nænne anwald.

‘Then he said: Therefore it is no doubt that the good ones are always powerful, and the

evil ones do not have any power.’ (YCOE, 850–950)

Ø be N hit be N Þær be N TOT

OE2

850-950

70 90.91 7 9.09 0 0 77 100

OE3

950-1050

59 93.65 4 6.35 0 0 63 100

OE4

1050-1150

48 73.85 15 23.07 2 3.08 65 100

TOT 177 86.34 26 12.68 2 0.98 205 100

Table 1: Distribution of the three existential types over stages of OE.

These results confirm the findings of studies such as Breivik (1989) and (Traugott 1992: 217–219):

there- and it-less existentials formed by far the majority in OE, particularly in the earlier stages, and the


variants with there and it were minor, but gained ground towards the end of OE5. This distribution

strongly suggests that existential there must share crucial features with existential it as in OE it and there

emerged more or less at the same time as grammatical subjects of existential be.

Besides this historical evidence, there is synchronic evidence of the functional equivalence of

existential it and there, and their counterparts in other Germanic languages. Existential it is still featured

in certain varieties of English, such as U.S. south and south Midland (OED, it), as in (31).

(32) It ain’t nobody here... It ain’t nobody in the shop. (2004) (Buford Shadows of Legion vi.

121, OED)

In Dutch, the standard existential subject is er but some Dutch dialects such as West-Flemish have

existential het/’ t reduced it) (Haegeman & Weir 2015), as in (33).

(33) ‘t Is veel volk geweest. – Ja-t.

it’s many people been – yeah-t.

(‘There was a great crowd. Yes, there was.’) (Haegeman & Weir 2015: 182)

It has also been noted that in Dutch daar appears – marginally – in existentials (Geerts et al. 1984: 395–

398), as in (34).

(34) Daar was ooit een dame die tegen me zei dat ik de meest aantrekkelijke man was die ze

ooit had ontmoet. ‘(www.hpdetijd.nl/2009-10-09/ik-dacht-dat-ik-alleenheerser-was/)

‘there was once a lady who told me that I was the most attractive man she had ever met’

A comparable situation is posited for spoken German by Weinert (2013), in which existentials may,

besides es gibt, have es ist/sind as in (35) and da ist/sind in (36) (Weinert 2013).

(35) Es ist ein Gewitter im Anmarsch.

‘There’s a thunderstorm on the way.’ (Weinert 2013: 71)

(36) ach da ist ah moment da ist noch n anderer aussichtspunkt

‘ah there is ah hang on there is another viewpoint’ (Weinert 2013: 65)

5 The fact that in our pilot study the type with subject it was more common than that with there may be due to the frequency of negative existentials in our data, as in (29), which according to Breivik (1983) and López-Couso (2006) lagged behind their affirmative counterparts in adopting existential there.


3.3. The adverbial and pronominal paradigms in which er participates in Dutch: synchronic

description

Any description of the different kinds of er6 in Dutch has to refer to Bech’s (1952) account, whose

influence can be traced on the treatment of er in the Algemene Nederlandse Spraakkunst, ‘General Dutch

Grammar’ (Geerts et al. 1984: 382–398). Bech contrasts the “representational” with the “non-

representational” uses of er. Er’s main representational functions are the locative use (37) and the use

found with prepositions (38)–(40). In these two functions, er contrasts with hier and daar, the three of

which Bech refers to as “adverbial pronouns”. In their locative uses (37), they designate locations: hier

points to a definite near location, daar to a definite remote location, and er to a definite location (Bech

1952: 13). Examples (38)–(40) illustrate the use of hier, daar and er with prepositions, in which they

refer to entities and are proportional with demonstratives and de (‘the’) / het (‘it’). That is, they are

themselves definite and can have either definite or indefinite antecedents. In (38) hiervoor means ‘for

these twenty-five guilders’, in (39) daar … mee means ‘with that chisel’, and in (40) er … van means

‘of the first sunrays’ (Bech 1952: 9).

(37) Ik ging de kamer binnen en hij stond hier/daar/er.

‘I went into the room and he stood here/there.’

(38) De vader geeft hem vijf en twintig gulden als beloning. Hiervoor koopt hij boeken.

(Bech 1952: 9)

‘The father gives him five and twenty guilders as a reward. For this he buys books.’

(39) Hij heeft een steekbeitel geleend. Daar zal hij de deur eenvoudig mee openbreken.

(Bech 1952: 9)

‘He has borrowed a chisel. With that he will simply jam the door open.’

(40) De ontwaakte aarde had de eerste zonnestralen vastgehouden en maakte er een gouden

siersel van. (Bech 1952: 9)

‘The woken up earth had absorbed the first sunrays and made of them a golden

decoration.’

According to Bech (1952: 13), existential er serves no representational function but only fills the subject

position in the clausal schema, that is, it is a “repletive”. It does not form a paradigm with hier or daar

but with repletive het (‘it’). Bech agrees with Jespersen (1924: 154f.) that the use of er/there as subject

6 I will not deal with the distinct case of quantitative er because it functions at the level of the NP and is assumed to be derived from a different source. It has no counterpart in English. As analysed by Bech (1952: 26–30), quantitative er can point either to the set from which a quantity is expressed, as in (i), or to the type specifications of which a quantity is indicated, as in (ii).

(i) Er waren er nog drie levend van de zestig die vertrokken waren. ‘There were [‘er’] three still alive of the sixty that had left.’

(ii) Wat weten ze hier van een kameel, ik heb er zelf nooit een gezien. ‘What do they know here of camels, I myself have never seen [‘er’] one.’ (Bech 1952: 27).


and the demotion to complement of the indefinite semantic subject, tranen (‘tears’) in (41), are

motivated by the fact that Dutch, like English, disfavours initial indefinite subjects. But, against

Jespersen, he stresses (1952: 14) that repletive er/there is definite. The only argument he gives for this

is that it would be paradoxical to explain er/there as a remedy for the indefiniteness of the semantic

subject but to view er itself as indefinite.

(41) Er waren tranen in zijn ogen.

‘There were tears in his eyes.’

Whilst Bech’s (1952) analysis of the different types of Dutch er is very insightful, I also find some

problems with it. Firstly, the hybrid grammatical class of ‘adverbial pronouns’ does not do justice to the

different elements of structure realized by hier, daar and er in (37) versus (38)–(40), which lead me to

view the former as adverbs and the latter as pronouns. Secondly, I will give formal and semantic

arguments for not setting existential er apart from the pronominal uses. Bech draws the main

grammatico-semantic distinction between the representational adverbial pronouns hier, daar and er, and

the repletives er and het. Against this, I take the two main paradigms to be the adverbs hier, daar and

er, which express locative deixis, and the pronouns hier, daar and er together with their counterparts

dit, dat and het, which convey entity-deixis. This allows me to explain the occurrence of er and het not

only as subject of existentials, but also in other constructions, viz. as complement in ‘complement

extraposition’, where, marginally, the stronger pronouns daar/hier and dit/dat are also found. In

constructions such as the existential and extraposition constructions, these pronouns, I will argue, have

weak cataphoric entity-deixis.

Let us first consider the adverbial paradigm, illustrated by (42)–(44), for which Bech’s term

“adverbial pronouns” is confusing. These uses of hier – daar – er / here – there [ðɛə] – there [ðə] cannot

be substituted for by pronouns, or other nominals, which designate entities, but only by grammatical

classes capable of designating locations, i.e. adverbs or prepositional phrases. The locative adverbs hier

– daar – er are used by the speaker to identify locations, they do not have entity-deixis. It is generally

accepted that the primary meaning of proximal – non-proximal hier – daar is that of pointing

exophorically to a place (Lyons 1975), a use marginally possible with er, as in (42). All three adverbs

can be used endophorically, referring to a location already given in the discourse, as in (43)–(45).

(42) Zie je hem? Ja, hij staat hier/daar/er.

‘Do you see him? Yes, he’s standing here/there.’

(43) In de Franse Ardennen dus. … Hier heeft de tijd stilgestaan.

(blog.seniorennet.be/jelle1954/ archief.php?ID=1659629)

‘So, in the French Ardennes: Here time has stood still.’


(44) Robbie vloog naar Chicago voor een vrijgezellenfeest, maar stond daar moederziel

alleen. (https://www.hln.be/.../robbie-vloog-naar-chicago-voor-een-vrijgezellenfeest)

‘Robbie flew to Chicago for a bachelor’s party, but he found himself all on his own

there.’

(45) Amir vond echter wel geluk in Amerika, want hij ontmoette er een leuke vrouw, Soraya.

(https://www.scholieren.com/boekverslag/67103)

‘Amir, however, did find happiness in America, because he met there a nice woman,

Soraya.’

However, it is important to point out that, because of its reduced phonological status, the positions of er

‘there [ðə]’ are more restricted than those of hier ‘here’ and daar ’there [ðɛə]’. In an example like (42),

the reduced adverb is used if the verb preceding it carries the information focus, as opposed to contexts

in which the adverb is focal, as shown in (42)’, with bold font used to mark phonological prominence.

The non-salient adverb cannot be fronted either, unlike the salient ones, as illustrated by the fronting

variants in (42)’’.

(42)’ Hij staat hier/daar. vs. Hij staat er.

‘He’s standing here/there.’ [ðɛə] vs. ‘He was standing there [ðə].’

(42)’’ Hier /daar staat hij. vs. *Er staat hij.

‘Here/There he’s standing.’ vs. *‘there [ðə] he’s standing.’

These observations show the non-tenability of a number of positions that have been assumed in the

literature with regard to existential er. One such position is that existential er fulfils the same function

as fronted adverbials like hier and daar, which then entails that the three variants in (46) have the same

clause structure.

(46) Hier/daar/er is een paard.

‘Here/there [ðɛər] / there [ðər] is a horse.’

Kirsner (1979: 3) seems to assume something like this when he ascribes two possible readings to

examples like (47), in which, he claims, locative and existential functions have been conflated in er,

yielding both ‘a dog barks (there)’ and ‘there is a dog barking’,

(47) er blaffen honden.

‘there bark dogs.’ (Kirsner 1979: 3)


Against this, I hold that er can never function as an initial locative sentence adjunct, not in independent

clauses and not in coordinated ones, as shown by the ungrammaticality of (45)’. As locative adjunct er

is always used postverbally, as in (42) and (45), most typically anaphorically, as in (45). Hence, in (46),

er can only be the existential subject.

(45)’ *want er ontmoette hij een leuke vrouw, Soraya.

*‘for there [ðə] he met a nice woman, Soraya.’

We can now turn to the pronominal paradigm, which subsumes hier – daar – er, which are so closely

proportional with dit – dat – het that the latter can be viewed as members of the same general paradigm

of phoric pronouns with very similar formal and functional properties. Whilst they are themselves

definite, they can express phoric relations to definite or indefinite NPs. I will first consider the uses with

prepositions and then those as subject of existentials.

Examples (38)–(40) above illustrate the pronouns hier – daar – er used with prepositions, which

they can form compounds with (38) or occur separately from (39)–(40). The element of structure they

are used in, the nominal complement of a preposition, and their meaning – reference to entities – show

them to be pronouns. As illustrated above, they can point to singular antecedents, e.g. een steekbeitel ‘a

chisel’ in (39), or plural ones, e.g. de eerste zonnestralen ‘the first sunrays’ in (40). Number is not marked

on the pronouns hier – daar – er themselves. The diachronic development that led from the deictic

adverbials to these pronominal uses involves a shift from locative deixis to entity-deixis: from pointing

to a location to pointing to an entity in a certain location. If I say that these uses are not locative, I do

not mean to say that there are no remnants at all of the deictic meanings of the adverbs, but these have

shifted from pointing through space to identify a location relative to speaker and hearer to indicating a

trajectory to identify an entity. This raises the further question of whether the proximal-/non-proximal

contrast is still strongly present in this paradigm. It seems to me that García’s (1975) distinction between

different degrees of deictic strength, which Kirsner (1979) brought to bear on hier – daar – er7, is more

prominent in the contrasts operating in this paradigm. In particular, er plus preposition has the lowest

degree of deictic force, which is reflected in its strong propensity to being used anaphorically, i.e. to

refer to entities that are given in the preceding text.

As discussed for (38)–(40), the pronouns hier – daar – er can be replaced by the preposition

plus the noun phrase that they refer to: hier by dit/deze (+ noun), daar by dat/die (+ noun), er by de (+

noun). Whilst their close proportionality with just dit – dat – het in prepositional phrases can be pointed

out in a meta-linguistic way, actual use of the preposition followed by dit – dat is rather marked in

Present-day Dutch, as shown by the artificiality of using voor dit in (38) and met dat in (39), and the

7 However, Kirsner (1979: 71–79) applied this distinction to the adverbial uses, rejecting Bech’s (1952) proximal/non-proximal approach to them. Kirsner does not discuss hier – daar – er used with prepositions in any detail.


preposition followed by non-salient het is ungrammatical, as shown by the impossibility of using *van

het in (40). In Dutch, er is very productive in its use with prepositions, extending its use to refer to

personal antecedents as well (Geerts et al. 1984: 387).

The proportionalities in Dutch between the pronominal uses of hier – daar – er and the ordinary

demonstrative pronouns and determiners used with prepositions can thus be outlined as follows:

hiervoor – daarvoor – ervoor voor die N – voor dat N – voor het N ?voor dit – ?voor dat – * in het

hiermee – daarmee – ermee met die N – met dat N – met het N ?met dit – ?met dat – *met het

hiervan – daarvan – ervan van die N – van dat N – van het N ?van dit – ?van dat – *van het

In examples like (48)–(53), we find the exact same pronominal system of hier – daar – er proportional

with dit – dat – het. However, the ordinary demonstrative pronouns are fully productive in this

construction, whose English variant with it, as in (53), was called “complement extraposition” by

Bolinger (1972: 27). In fact, all examples are instances of an overarching construction, which for lack

of a better term I will refer to as the complement extraposition construction. They have matrices

expressing emotional or cognitive interaction with the proposition contained in the factive that-

complement clause (Gentens & Davidse 2017). The pronouns function as cataphoric pronouns, which

point forward to the following that-clause (Bech 1952: 10). These postcedents are typically singular,

even though there may of course be more than one complement clause. Hier – daar – er are used if the

main clause verb patterns with an oblique, prepositional complement, introduced by prepositions such

as over ‘about’, as in (48)–(50), and dit – dat – het are used if the main clause verb is more transitive

and patterns with a direct participant, as in (51)–(53). The non-salient pronouns er and het are the

unmarked choice in complement extraposition. Most contexts favour their weak cataphoric force; the

more emphatic cataphoric force of daar – dat and particularly hier – dit requires extra contextual

motivation.

(48) Als u dan een asbak ziet, doet het u niets, en u verheugt zich hierover dat u het echt

kunt. (www.50plusser.nl/forum/viewtopic.php?p=37291)

‘If you then see an ashtray, it won’t do anything to you, and you will be pleased about

this that you are really managing.’

(49) Ik verbaas me daarover, dat mensen op internet zo fel en vol haat kunnen zijn.

(https://www.fatsforum.nl/forums/reply/mazelenuitbraak-in-nederlandse-bijbelgordel-

200/)

‘I am surprised about that, that people on the internet are so fierce and full of hate.’

(50) Ze verwondert zich erover dat hij zo onzeker is. (https://www.taaltelefoon.be/erover-

er-over)

‘She is surprised about it that she is so insecure.’


(51) ik haat dit dat ze mensen zitten lastig te vallen om niets.

(https://www.wieheeftgebeld.nl/nummer/016363808)

‘I hate this that they are annoying people for nothing.’

(52) Ik haat dat, dat hij op mijn gevoelens inspeelt.

(https://forum.scholieren.com/showthread.php?t=248019)

‘I hate that, that he manipulates my feelings.’

(53) Charles … betreurt het dat de kerken leger worden en de cabarets voller.

(https://books.google.be/books?isbn=9021442450)

‘Charles … regrets it that the churches become emptier and the cabarets fuller.’

We are now in a position to look at all the pronouns found in Dutch existential clauses. Instead of relating

existential er exclusively and directly to its ultimate source, the deictic locative adverb daar, I argue that

the existential pronouns relate more directly to the pronouns found in complement extraposition.

Firstly, this view allows to capture the overlap in distribution. Reduced er has become the

default choice in standard Dutch, with d’er and ter as informal variants, while reduced ‘t is found in

some dialect varieties such as West-Flemish (see example 33). The two existential subjects are thus the

same as the two main pronouns in complement extraposition. Daar is recognized as a very marginal

variant of er, as in example (34) above and in the first line of the old song Daar was laatst een meisje

loos (‘There was once a mischievous girl’). By stressing that the existential subjects are a subset of the

larger paradigm of pronouns with entity-deixis, we can explain why daar is marginally possible as

existential subject. I propose that the existential subject daar is the pronoun with greater phonological

salience – and perhaps greater deictic force – which, however, just like er has entity-deixis and points,

for instance, to the instance of ‘meisje’ being introduced in the song, as will be explained in the next

paragraph8.

Indeed, relating existential er and het to other pronominal uses also makes us look differently at

the traditional view of them as utterly semantically empty. The definite meaning of pronominal er and

het in extraposition constructions provides a more substantial argument for viewing existential subject

er, like existential het, as definite than the mere requirement that subjects should be definite, as advanced

by Bech (1952). The comparable uses of er and het in the extraposition also support the idea that they

are pronouns with weak deictic force, able to be used endophorically only. I propose that in canonical

existentials they point to the entity or entities designated by the indefinite Existent NP. The identifiability

status of the Existent NP is always that of instances of a type being newly introduced into the discourse.

Pointing to newly introduced entities, either count or uncount, singular or plural is part of the functional

range of reduced er and it, as has been shown in the above paragraphs. Typically, the phoric direction

8 The subjects found in existential clauses with sein in German, as illustrated in (35)–(36), can probably be accounted for along similar lines.


will be cataphoric, as existential er and het mostly precede the Existent VP, but in the case where the

Complement NP is fronted, er points back anaphorically to the Existent NP, as in (54).

(54) Slechts één man was er in Engeland, één enkele die te midden van de algemeene

radeloosheid een uitweg zag. Die man was Thomas More. (from H. Roland Holst,

Thomas More: Een treurspel in verzen.)

‘Only one man was there in England, only one who amidst general despair saw a way

out. That man was Thomas More.’

Summing up, for Dutch er, which in standard accounts such as Geerts et al. (1984) is said to be part of

three paradigms, adverbial, phoric pronominal and expletive pronominal, I have argued that it is part of

only two basic paradigms: the adverbial, where hier/daar/er point to locations, and the pronominal,

where hier/daar/er, like die/dat/het, point to entities. In the latter, er/het have low deictic and endophoric

only force. In specific grammatical contexts such as the complement in complement extraposition, and

the subject in existential clauses, we typically find the phonologically reduced and weakly phoric er/het,

even though the more prominent forms with stronger deictic force like daar/dat tend to be marginally

possible. In these contexts they are typically used cataphorically. By not setting apart existential er –

and het – as expletive subject, I arrived at an account which I would argue is both simpler and more

comprehensive.

3.4. The pronominal paradigm in which there participates in English: a diachronic-synchronic

perspective

In this section I will argue that the pronominal uses of Dutch er and het found with prepositions, in

complement extraposition constructions and in existential clauses are fully paralleled by the English

system of there [ðər] and it, which emerged in Old English.

As we saw in Section 3.2, existential it was attested in the corpus study of Van linden & Davidse

(2014) from the period 850–950 on. In the OED, which generally gives a good idea of the earliest

attestations, the first quote of existential there is c 893. The pronominal uses of there with prepositions

emerged very much in the same period. In the OED, we find the earliest cited example of thereafter

dating from c 897, thereinne c 897, theremid c 888, thereof c 1000, thereon c 897, thereout c 893,

therewith c 1000. Of all these, it is noted that initially they tended to be written as two words, e.g. ter of

in (57), which clearly reveals their being composed of there and preposition. If combined into one word,

the resulting compounds have adverbial status. The semantic glosses in the OED systematically include

the preposition followed by ‘that’ or ‘it’, thus signaling that there has entity-deixis. The element of

structure there is used in, the nominal complement of a preposition, and its meaning, reference to

entities, show it to be a pronoun. We thus see that in the early stages of OE, the deictic adverbial there

had developed a pronominal use. This grammatical change was motivated by a semantic shift from


locative deixis to entity-deixis: from pointing to a location to pointing to an entity in a certain location.

As the pronominal uses are overwhelmingly endophoric, the change was from pointing through space

to identify a location for the hearer (the original exophoric use of the locative deictic) to indicating a

trajectory along which the reader can identify an entity in the unfolding discourse. There is an

identifying, definite pronoun, which may point to either definite (55)–(56) or indefinite (58), singular

(56), (58) or plural (55) antecedents. On the pronoun there itself there is no number marking.

(55) Wealdend..heofones & eorðan....& ealra ðara þe ðærin wuniað. (a1000 Boeth. Metr. xi.

4, OED)

‘the Ruler of heaven and earth, and all of them that live theerin.’

(56) The compasse of the worlde, and all yt dwell therin (1535 Bible (Coverdale) Psalms

xxiv. 2, OED)

‘The compass of the world and that dwell therein’

(57) Al þat muchele lure þat ter of ariseð. (c1230 Hali Meid. 5, OED)

‘All that great destruction that thereof arises.’

(58) If Lazarus had carried to him a pitcher of fresh water, hee should haue taken great

refreshment thereof. (1594 R. Carew tr. J. Huarte, Exam. Mens Wits vii. 99, OED)

In English, the phonological reduction of there is, unlike in Dutch, not marked morphologically for

existential there. Importantly, for there’s uses with prepositions, the OED explicitly notes in a number

of cases, e.g. therefor(e), therewith, thereof, the possibility of “shifting stress”, i.e. putting stress on

either there or the preposition. For many, alternative spellings suggestive of stress on the preposition are

included, e.g. throf, thrynne, throut(e). From this we can conclude that wholly parallel to the pronominal

uses of daar and er with prepositions, English developed a system with pronominal uses of there [ðɛər]

and there [ðər].

The first cited examples of pronominal uses of here with prepositions are generally a few

centuries later in the OED, e.g. hereby c 1250, herefor 1300, herein c 1000, hereof c 1050, hereon c

1000, hereout 1225. Thus, from Middle English on, a system was in place that was wholly parallel with

the one that is still in vogue in Dutch, in which the pronominal uses of here – there [ðɛər] – there [ðər]

aligned with the pronouns this – that – it, referring to entities – not locations. In English, the former

system became archaic or obsolete, and the latter became the unmarked means of expression.

herein – therein – thrin in this N – in that N – in the N in this – in that – in it

herewith – therewith – therewith with this N – with that N – with the N with this – with that – with it

hereof – thereof – throf of this N – of that N – of the N of this – of that – of it


The semantic contrasts within these paradigms of demonstrative pronouns and determiners seem mainly

to do with the different degrees of deictic strength, which Kirsner (1979) brought to bear on hier – daar

– er. If we correlate high degree of deictic force to low accessibility of the antecedent (Ariel 2001), then

the pronominal uses of here refer to lowly activated antecedents, those of there [ðɛər] to antecedents

with medium accessibility, and those of there [ðər] to highly activated antecedents.

The core pronouns of the system, there and it, were, as in Dutch, the unmarked choices in

extraposition constructions in earlier stages of English. There was used in oblique complements with

preposition, as in (59) and it in direct object complements, as in (60). They function as weakly cataphoric

pronouns, which point forward to the following that-clause. In accordance with the process of

obsolescence that affected the pronominal use of there in compounds like (59), examples such as (61)

are now restricted to archaic registers like legal texts. The construction with it, as in (62), is still fully

productive (Gentens 2016).

(59) Then murmured the Iewes ther ouer, that he sayde; I am yt bred which is come down

from heauen. (1535, Bible (Coverdale) John vi. 41, OED)

‘Then murmured the Jews thereover, that he said: I am the bread that is come down

from heaven.’

(60) Whenne god hit wol..þat monnes flesshe to molde fal. (a1400 (▸a1325) Cursor Mundi

(Trin. Cambr.) l. 22798, OED)

‘When God wants it that man’s flesh to dust falls.”

(61) The appellant has moved an Interlocutory Application and complained thereof that in

spite of the order of stay of this Court, the respondents have been making construction

in the suit property and have violated the order passed by this Court

(https://indiankanoon.org/doc/61219119/?type=print)

(62) Do they really want it that clubs can terminate contracts? (WB)

The core pronouns found in extraposition constructions are the same ones as the non-salient pronouns

there and it found as subject in existential clauses. This casts an interesting light on the existential

pronouns, given that in the literature there has been either the tendency to perceive existential there as

still in some sense a locative adverb (e.g. Lyons 1975) or the opposite tendency to view there not only

as non-locative but also as semantically empty (e.g. Breivik 1989). In extraposition constructions there

is not perceived as being adverbial and having locative meaning but it is not viewed either as having no

referring meaning. In extraposition examples like (59) and (61) there, like it, is clearly a pronoun,

pointing to entities in the discourse, not locations, and it has weak cataphoric force.

I propose that the grammatical class and meaning of there and it as subject of English existential

clauses is in many ways similar. They are pronouns with weak deictic force, able to be used

endophorically only. They point to the entity or entities designated by the indefinite Existent NP, which


mark instances of a type being newly introduced into the discourse. Pointing to newly introduced

entities, either count or uncount, singular or plural is part of the functional range of the pronouns there

[ðər] and it. The proposed functional value of existential it and there is coherent with their syntactic

function – they are definite, which is the preferred value of subjects – and with the other component

functions of existentials – they point to the entities designated by the obligatory Existent NP, not to the

locative adjunct which may be, but often is not, present in existentials. As existential there and it mostly

precede the VP, their phoric direction is typically cataphoric, as in complement extraposition. As such,

they function as a presentative signal, announcing their upcoming postcedent. I submit that this account,

supported by the parallel analysis of the pronominal system in Dutch, makes more comprehensive

generalizations and has more explanatory power than the traditional analyses of expletive there viewed

as a phenomenon sui generis in existential clauses.

4. The semantic functions of the adjunct in canonical existentials

As was noted in the Introduction, in locative interpretations of the existential, locative adjuncts in

examples such as (1), There were two usherettes in the foyer, are analysed as falling within the scope of

the VP and as making a predication of the Existent NP (Lyons 1975). In Davidse (1999), I followed

Kuno (1971), who argued that a predicative reading is impossible for many adjuncts in existentials,

which, as noted with regard to examples (2)–(4), may specify other circumstances than location, such

as duration, over the years (2), matter, about this bill (3) and purpose, for these results (3). If a

predication-type reading of the adjunct in existentials is possible, this is the marked option according to

Kuno (1971).

Kuno’s (1971) argumentation hinges on examples like (63), in which both the Existent and the

adjunct contain quantifiers, symbolized as Q2 and Q1 respectively. If such examples, the unmarked

reading is based on Q1 – Q2 order. An example like (63) is normally interpreted as ‘in all the courses,

there are many students’ (Q1 – Q2) – and not as ‘it is true of many students that they are in all the courses’

(Q2 – Q1). The latter reading is marginally possible for (63) but excluded with other examples such as

(64), which can only mean ‘of all transactions, many records are kept’ (Q1 – Q2), not ‘it is true of many

records that they are kept of all transactions’ (Q2 – Q1). In the structural representation corresponding to

this unmarked reading of adjuncts in existentials, the adjunct is not a part of the VP. Rather, it is outside

of the S-node (Kuno 1971: 363–369). On the marked reading of (63), in all the courses is predicated in

some way of many students, just as ill is predicated of many students in There were many students ill

(Kuno 1971: 368). We will return to the marked reading of (63) later in this section.

(63) There are many (Q2) students in all (Q1) the courses. (Kuno 1971: 361)

(64) There are many (Q2) records kept of all (Q1) transactions. (Kuno 1971: 368)


In Quirk et al.’s (1985) terms, the adjunct in existentials is typically a sentence adjunct, i.e. a modifier

of the process-participant nucleus (McGregor 1997), which consists of there, be and the Existent NP.

Sentence adjuncts occur naturally in end and initial position without affecting the representational

semantics. This is borne out by existentials, whose sentence adjuncts naturally alternate between end

and initial position, as shown by (63)’ and (64)’, and by the alternates of examples (3)–(4).

(63)’ In all the courses, there are many students.

(64)’ Of all transactions, many records are kept.

(3) There are no smiles about this bill. (WB)

(3)’ About this bill there are no smiles.

(4) For good results, there are some guidelines you should follow. (Google)

(4)’ There are some guidelines you should follow for good results.

I have proposed to characterize the semantic contribution made to the sentence adjuncts of the canonical

existential in terms of Langacker’s (1991: 177) notion of search domain. A search domain specifies the

region to which the semantic target of a construal is confined, by providing specifications that have to

be satisfied (Langacker 1999: 53). The notion of search domain allows us to include all the specifications

that restrict the semantic target of canonical existentials. Their spatio-temporal domain is delineated by

the tense of the VP, spatial or temporal specifications provided by the sentence adjuncts, and contextual

clues from the preceding discourse. Other types of adjuncts, specifying e.g. matter (3) or purpose (4),

add further conditions to the search domain within which the semantic target of the existential applies.

This semantic target is, as argued in Section 2, the quantification of the instantiation of the relevant type

specifications. For instance, (63) quantifies the instances of ‘students’ within the search domain of ‘all

the courses’ taught at the time the utterance is made, by the people and within the institution for which

further contextual clues are needed. In (4), the search domain is defined by the modal should as a deontic

domain assessing the desirability of future actions, with for some good results (and all its contextual

specifications) indicating further conditions on the ‘guidelines to be followed’ that the existential seeks

to quantify.

Let us now turn to the other possible readings of prepositional phrases and adjuncts used as

separate constituents9 in existentials, as in (65) and (66). These examples differ from existentials with

sentence adjuncts in terms of their alternates. Whereas sentence adjuncts in final position can of their

nature systematically be put in initial position, (65) and (66) can’t, as shown in (65)’–(66)’. This shows

that on the dole and over something else do not modify the whole clause nucleus. Conversely, sentence

9 We are not concerned with preposition phrases functioning as NP-internal constituent in the Existent NP, as in There are criminals and there are people who commit crimes out of acts of desperation. (WB)


adjuncts do not systematically alternate with forms with relative clauses, as shown in (3)’’ and (4)’’,

whereas (65) and (66) do, as shown in (65)’’–(66)’’, where the example in question is actually preceded

by an existential containing a full relative clause.

(65) I’d just like to ask Mr Dawson if he’s listens to your show how people like pricks like

him I should say get top jobs when there’s you know there’s obviously cleverer people

on the dole. (WB)

(65)’ *on the dole, there’s obviously cleverer people.

(65)’’ there’s obviously cleverer people who are on the dole.

(65)’’’ there’s obviously cleverer people Ø are on the dole.

(66) they developed the administration not just the registry so that there were five or six I

think it is main heads of the various sections of it. I mean there was MX who was over

er all the registry and then there was somebody over something else and so on. (WB)

(66)’ … *then over something else there was somebody.

(66)’’ … there was somebody who was over something else.

(66) ’’’ … there was MX Ø was over all the registry and then there was somebody Ø was over

something else.

(3)’’ *There are no smiles that are about this bill.

(4)’’ *There are some good guidelines that you should follow that are for good results.

The crucial point about alternates (65)’’ and (66)” is that they are there-clefts. They are not existential

clauses whose complement NP contains a NP-internal restrictive relative clause. This is shown by the

fact that they allow omission of the relative anaphor with subjects, as in (65)’’–(65)’’’ and (66)’’–(66)’’’,

which is characteristic of clefts and which is not possible in ordinary restrictive relative clauses (Collins

1991: 52). The possibility of zero subject relative marker is one important argument for (65)’’ and (66)’’

being there-clefts, as also pointed out by Huddleston (1971: 325) with regard to there-clefts. Further

arguments are provided by the semantics coded by (65)’’ and (66)’’ respectively. They represent two

types of there-clefts, presentational-eventive (65)’’ and specificational (66)’’ there-clefts, whose

semantics are discussed in Lambrecht (2001), Davidse (2000), and Davidse & Kimps (2015). (65)’’’ is

a presentational-eventive there-cleft, in which all the material obviously cleverer people Ø are on the

dole forms “a single canonical clause whose proposition is pragmatically asserted” (Lambrecht 2001:

507), while initial there are functions as a signal that the whole state-of-affairs is being introduced

(Huddleston 1984: 469f.). As suggested by Lambrecht (2002), constructionally, the relative clause

predicates on the complement NP obviously cleverer people in the existential matrix, which entails that

the whole construction is a secondary predication construction.


(66)’’ is a specificational there-cleft, in which a value is listed, i.e. non-exhaustively specified

for a variable (Lambrecht 2001). On my analysis (Davidse 2000: 1102), a there-cleft, like an it-cleft,

expresses the value-variable relation two times. In (66), for instance, the value-variable relation is

conveyed a first time by the specificational existential matrix, which lists somebody as a value of the

general variable given in the preceding discourse, viz. main heads of the various sections of it [the

registry]. The value-variable relation is expressed a second time by the relation between the antecedent

and the cleft relative clause, which relates somebody as a value to the more specific variable who was

over something else. In the preceding listing there-cleft in (66) the specificational matrix likewise lists

MX (anonymized proper name of male) as value of the discourse-given general variable main heads of

the various sections of it [the registry], and the antecedent – cleft relative clause relation then replays

the specificational relation for the more specific variable who was over all the registry. The whole

construction has, at a schematic level, the same structural assembly as presentational-eventive there-

clefts, with a specificational matrix and a ‘secondary’ relation between the complement NP and the

anaphor in the relative clause. Because this secondary relation is specificational, the whole construction,

it is proposed in Davidse & Kimps (2016), is a secondary specification construction.

The analysis I propose, then, for the original examples is that (65), there’s obviously cleverer

people on the dole, is a secondary predication construction, and (66), then there was somebody over

something else, is a secondary specification construction. Constructions involving ‘secondary relations’

were first posited by Nichols (1978) to capture the structural assembly of examples such as (67) where

the secondary predicate is a NP, as a forgery, and was then extended by König & Lambrecht (1999) to

examples where the secondary predicate is a relative clause.

(67) We interpret this text as a forgery. (McGregor 1997: 172).

I hence propose to analyse the prepositional phrase on the dole in (65) as a secondary predicate and over

something else as the variable in a secondary specification relation.

5. Concluding discussion

In this article I have revisited my earlier account (Davidse 1992, 1999) of the grammatical semantics of

canonical existentials. I hold on to the basic idea that they construe the quantified instantiation of the

relevant type specifications conveyed by the Existent NP in a search domain specified by the tense of

the VP, and by any other sentence adjuncts that may be present. However, I have corrected and further

elaborated some aspects of the earlier proposals.

Firstly, with regard to the restrictions on the determiners of the Existent NP, I have reformulated

the way the indefiniteness restriction interacts with the quantification restriction. The ban on definite

determiners is paralleled by the ban on universal relative quantifiers, not on all relative quantifiers, as


following Milsark (1976, 1977), I had claimed. In other words, the instantiation of the type specifications

that is quantified cannot be construed as coinciding with an identifiable reference set or mass.

Secondly, I reformulated and developed my earlier hunch that existential there has some relation

to pronominal there found in compounds with prepositions such as thereof and therewith. To get a

handle on the English system, I first charted the synchronic system of adverbial and pronominal er in

Dutch, the only Germanic language to have morphologized the phonological reduction of the non-

proximal spatial deictic. I argued that Dutch er is a member of two basic paradigms: the adverbial, where

hier/daar/er point to locations, and the pronominal, where hier/daar/er, like die/dat/het, point to entities.

In the pronominal paradigm, er and het have low deictic and typically endophoric force. In specific

grammatical contexts such as complement extraposition and existential clauses, we typically find the

phonologically reduced and weakly phoric er and het, even though some of the more salient forms with

stronger deictic force are marginally attested as well10. I then argued that, from the late stages of Old

English on, we see precisely the same paradigms developing, with pronominal uses of there, both [ðɛər]

and reduced [ðər], and here, which are proportionate with that, its reduced form it, and this. Reduced

there and it became the unmarked choice in complement extraposition, while there [ðər] became the

default choice for the subject in existentials, but with it surviving in regional varieties. In existentials,

they point, mostly cataphorically, to the entity or entities designated by the indefinite Existent NP, which

designate instances of a type being newly introduced into the discourse. As such, existential there and

it function as a presentative signal, announcing their upcoming postcedent.

Thirdly, I revisited the question of the grammatical functions of prepositional phrases and

adjuncts in existentials. I firstly recapped the arguments for viewing the prepositional phrase in examples

such as (3) There are no smiles about this bill as sentence adjuncts. I then proposed to analyse the

prepositional phrases in examples such as (65), there’s obviously cleverer people on the dole, and (66),

then there was somebody over something else, as secondary predication and specification respectively.

By way of conclusion, I put forth the following grammatical semantics of English canonical

existentials, as distinguished from existential constructions involving secondary predication or

secondary specification. The clause nucleus of canonical existentials expresses quantification of the

newly introduced instantiation of the type specifications conveyed by the Existent NP. This semantic

target is restricted by the specifications of the search domain. The VP provides temporal (or epistemic

modal) restrictions. Any sentence adjuncts that may be present add further conditions to the search

domain in accordance with their semantics such as place, as in (1) in the foyer, time, as in (2) over the

years, matter, as (3) about this bill, or purpose (4) for good results. Finally, elements from the co-text

or context may further restrict the search domain within which the quantification of the newly introduced

instantiation applies.

10 They are attested with different distributions in these two grammatical environments: hier/daar and die/dat are all found in complement extraposition, but only daar in existentials.


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