Earticle

초록

영어

It is well known that the existential there construction (ETC) exhibits seemingly idiosyncratic properties with respect to number-agreement and definiteness. Contrary to the views of traditional and previous generative grammars, we have found that is/was and ‘s can agree with singular and plural NPs immediately following the verb in the ETC and that the NPs can be definite or indefinite. To handle this, we claim that the use of definiteness in the ETC is pragmatically governed by the speaker’s assumption that the listener can infer the referent of the definite NP from context. Meanwhile, the sociolinguistic analysis of number-agreement suggests that the singular is/was are increasingly used to co-occur with plural NPs in spoken English and the contracted form ‘s functions as a number-neutral variant. These observations demonstrate how the ETC reflects both pragmatic reasoning and sociolinguistic changes in English usage. We implement these ideas above into a construction-based grammar: the generating system of the ETC governing (in)definite NPs and the lexicon allowing is/was to agree with plural NPs. This theory enables us to account for the peculiar properties of the ETC without positing additional rules.

목차

I. Introduction
II. Properties of the ETC and Related Issues
III. A Pragmatic and Sociolinguistic Account
IV. A Construction-Based Analysis of the ETC
V. Concluding Remarks
Works Cited
Abstract

키워드

저자

• Cho, Sae Youn [ Kangwon National University ]
• Lee, Han-gyu [ Kyung Hee University ] Corresponding Author

참고문헌

발행기관

간행물

표지보기 관심저널 등록

• 간행물명

  영어영문학연구 [The Jungang Journal of English Language and Literature]

• 간기

  계간

• pISSN

  1598-3293

• 수록기간

  1968~2025

• 등재여부

  KCI 등재

• 십진분류

  KDC 840 DDC 810