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In:Reconnecting Form and Meaning: In honour of Kristin Davidse
Edited by Caroline Gentens, Lobke Ghesquière, William B. McGregor and An Van linden
[Studies in Language Companion Series 230] 2023
► pp. 17–43

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Chapter 1
On the use of there-clefts with zero subject relativizer

 | University of Graz
Published online: 10 February 2023
DOI logo with link
https://doi.org/10.1075/slcs.230.01kal
Abstract
This chapter investigates the use of there-clefts without a subject relativizer (e.g. There’s a man came into the bar) in contemporary British English, a much neglected construction that is often dismissed as non-standard. Using data from the Spoken British National Corpus 2014, the study shows that it is clearly attested, with a total of 170 instances, and thus more than just a marginal syntactic anomaly. Omission of the relativizer is most frequent with the presentational-eventive type, which narrowly outnumbers the specificational type (viz. enumerative-specificational and quantifying-specificational). The relative frequency of the former is attributed to its unique pragmatic function, combining a new predication with a new referent. Structurally, this type is analysed as mono-clausal with an invariable existential prefix there’s.
Article outline
  • 1.Introduction
  • 2.There-clefts: Charting the territory
  • 3.Delimitation and corpus retrieval
  • 4.Overall frequencies
  • 5.Enumerative specificational there-cleft
  • 6.Quantifying-specificational there-cleft
  • 7.Presentational-eventive there-cleft
  • 8.Discussion: The discourse functions of there-clefts without relativizer
  • 9.Conclusion
  • Acknowledgements
  • Notes
  • References
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Cited by (3)

Cited by three other publications

Davidse, Kristin, Ngum Meyuhnsi Njende & Gerard O’Grady
2023. Structural Assemblies and Semantics of the Four Existential Constructions with Relative Clause. In Specificational and Presentational There-Clefts, ► pp. 75 ff. DOI logo
Davidse, Kristin, Ngum Meyuhnsi Njende & Gerard O’Grady
2023. Introduction. In Specificational and Presentational There-Clefts, ► pp. 1 ff. DOI logo
Davidse, Kristin, Ngum Meyuhnsi Njende & Gerard O’Grady
2023. Paradigms of Relative Markers. In Specificational and Presentational There-Clefts, ► pp. 49 ff. DOI logo

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