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Existential Constructions across Languages
Forms, meanings and functions
This volume reflects the centrality of the existential construction in current linguistic research and offers studies that both consolidate and challenge established research agendas. It addresses (i) a variety of constructions related to ‘prototypical’ existentials (including the have-possessive construction), and investigates (ii) the relationships between locative, existential, and information structure, (iii) the quantification of the pivot and (iv) the issue of negative existentials. It brings together different and complementary approaches (functional, cognitive, pragmatic, typological, comparative, diachronic, philosophical) based on a wide variety of data sources. The contributions illustrate how the so-called existential construction can take a variety of forms – more or less grammaticalized – and functions – ranging from the expression of literal existence to that of localization and discursive focus – in a wide range of languages. The book will be valuable for linguists, researchers or students, interested in the cross-linguistic manifestations of existential constructions at the interface between syntax, semantics and information structure.
[Human Cognitive Processing, 76] 2023. x, 352 pp.
Publishing status: Available
Published online on 13 June 2023
Published online on 13 June 2023
© John Benjamins
Table of Contents
- Funding | pp. vii–7
- Contributors | pp. ix–x
- Chapter 1. Existential constructions: In search of a definitionLaure Sarda and Ludovica Lena | pp. 1–32
- Part I. Existence and related constructions
- Chapter 2. Existential predication and have-possessive constructions in the languages of the worldDenis Creissels | pp. 34–67
- Chapter 3. Impersonal existence
in the weather domain: French il y a vs. il faitMachteld Meulleman and Katia Paykin | pp. 68–99 - Part II. Existence and information structure
- Chapter 4. Pure existentials vs. pure presentationals: Finding an existence out(side) of placeLivio Gaeta | pp. 102–138
- Chapter 5. Presentational clefts, existentials and information structure: A comparative perspective on French and ItalianAnne Carlier and Karen Lahousse | pp. 139–179
- Chapter 6. On a continuum from categorical to thetic judgment: Indefinite subjects and locatives in Hungarian and FrenchZsuzsanna Gécseg and Laure Sarda | pp. 180–218
- Part III. Existence and quantification
- Chapter 7. The Finnish existential clause: Aspect, case marking and quantification of the S argumentTuomas Huumo | pp. 220–244
- Chapter 8. Partition and existence: The case of you ren ‘there’s someone, there are people’ in ChineseLudovica Lena | pp. 245–282
- Part IV. Existence and negation
- Chapter 9. Is the French verb manquer ‘lack, miss’ a negative existential predicate?Danièle Van de Velde | pp. 284–300
- Chapter 10. ‘To be’ and its negation in LatvianDaniel Petit | pp. 301–324
- Chapter 11. Words also exist in a world: On the pattern ‘X’ does not exist; it’s called ‘Y’Bert Cappelle | pp. 325–345
- Index | pp. 347–351
- Language index | p. 352
“In sum, Sarda and Lena's Existential constructions across languages: Forms, meanings and functions insightfully highlights the variability in the form and meaning of existential constructions and illuminates both their distinctions and commonalities. It will certainly encourage interested researchers to further explore crosslinguistic patterns for existential constructions and to refine the definition thereof introduced in the volume.”
Yicheng Wu & Yunhan Jia, Zhejiang University, in Functions of Language 31:2 (2024).
Cited by (2)
Cited by two other publications
Creissels, Denis, Pier Marco Bertinetto & Luca Ciucci
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