Abstract
This chapter analyses the structural assemblies and semantics of the four existential constructions with relative clause. A simple existential clause codes a relation of occurrence hosted by the setting indexed by existential there. If the NP with existent role contains a restrictive relative clause, then the occurrence relation is construed as quantifying the instances of the composite type specifications of this NP. Non-restrictive relative clauses are either appositional to the existent NP or hypotactic to the main clause. In there-clefts, existential be is a three-place predicate, with existential there its subject, the existent NP its direct complement and the relative clause its indirect complement. In specificational there-clefts, the matrix codes the cognitive state resulting from an implied specificational act. The direct complement quantifies, or refers to, instances that match the definition in the relative clause. In presentational there-clefts, the matrix presents an entity, on which the relative clause predicates a discourse-new situation within the speaker’s cognitive awareness.
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Notes
- 1.
In accordance with our natural grammar tenet, we take it that the construal of the setting as subject, e.g. tanker Braer in (82a) has a different semantic effect from its construal as adjunct, e.g. from the storage tank in (82b). A possible semantic-pragmatic motivation was proposed by Vandenberghe (1998). He argues that in examples like (82a) the subject coding conveys a non-agentive notion of ‘responsibility’, such as a structural weakness or technical fault of the entity.
- 2.
Whilst Smith’s studies focus on German existential es, they also support the setting-subject analysis of English existential there.
- 3.
In Dutch and French existential clauses like (ia) and (ib), the semantic components of type specifications and quantified instantiation are clearly expressed by separate constituents. The pronoun er in Dutch (ia) and en in French (ib) mean ‘of that type’: they give instructions to anaphorically retrieve the relevant type specifications from the preceding text. Er and en function as adjunct of the existent NPs which themselves consist only of a quantifier, ‘three’, which quantifies the instantiation of the retrieved type. On Dutch er followed by quantifier, see Kruisinga (1949, § 294.a), Bech (1952: 26–32). On French en followed by quantifier, see Grevisse and Goosse (2011: 914).
-
(i)
a. Zijn er valide argumenten voor deze positie? Ja, er zijn er drie.
b. Est-ce qu’il y a des arguments valides pour cette position? Oui, il y en a trois.
“Are there valid arguments for this position? Yes, there are ‘of that type’ three”.
-
(i)
- 4.
In (90), the final relative clause is a cleft relative clause, as shown by its ability to have Ø subject relative marker: there was a man who was the head of the Irish Museum [Ø] was a German spy. This presentational there-cleft opens a set of stories about appointments of Germans before and during the war.
- 5.
The supplement relation awaits further elucidation within a cognitive-functional framework, which is, however, beyond the scope of this study.
- 6.
- 7.
Against the traditional analysis that views the relative clause in pseudo-clefts as a restrictive relative clause, we view it as a relative clause that has a full NP as antecedent. In footnote 12 in Chapter 7, we point out that the relative clause in pseudo-clefts also allows the zero subject relative, e.g. The one thing Ø gives me a happy feeling … is that he’s going to be shewn up (Golding, Lord: 142, quoted in Erdmann, 1980: 142).
- 8.
Deictic constructions with a finite relative clause as in (103) are judged acceptable by native speakers, but in actual usage English deictic constructions overwhelmingly take non-finite participial clauses, as in the original example from LLC, ^there was my auntie /Elsie // sitting on the sett\/ee // kn\itting //, from which we derived (104).
- 9.
Which, as we will argue below, also applies to indefinite NPs.
- 10.
They have what Declerck (1988) refers to as the descriptionally-identifying reading, in which an already identified subject is backed up with further information in the complement.
- 11.
For recognition criteria distinguishing clefts with specificational relative clause from constructions containing an NP-internal restrictive relative clause, we refer to Sect. 6. (113) is an it-cleft, as it answers the implied question Who wins? – Nobody wins. By contrast, an example with restrictive relative clause like I am seeing someone, but it's no one that you've ever met does not answer the implied question Which people have I ever met? – You have met no one ever. In (115), speaker A uses a there-cleft, in which the specificational relative clause features the distinctive formal characteristic of zero relative with subject function, there’s a lot of people ø do call it a road. Speaker B retorts with an opaque verb-cleft containing the same variable expressed by a specificational relative clause with overt subject relative marker but a negative value, I’ve found nobody that calls it that.
- 12.
Doherty (1993), like other studies of the zero subject relative marker such as Erdmann (1980) and Haegeman et al. (2015: 62), notes that it is also attested in pseudo-clefts like You were the one Ø came in. As just recapitulated, we follow Donnellan (1966) in attributing a definitional reading to the relative clause in pseudo-clefts, just like we do to the relative clause in specificational clefts. This goes some way towards solving the distributional puzzle of relative clauses allowing zero subject relative markers. Relative clauses whose paradigm of relative markers includes the zero subject relative have definitional meaning in specificational constructions. However, zero relatives also occur in presentational clefts, which shows that a broader semantic generalization must be formulated to cover their complete distribution.
- 13.
In Chapter 9, we discuss examples in our data with this information structure.
- 14.
Delin (1992) correctly stressed that the matrix of it-clefts describes a state, which is asserted in a declarative cleft and inquired into in an interrogative cleft.
- 15.
Example (122) is a quantifying there-cleft whose value NP has a negative quantifier and contains a restrictive relative clause and whose specificational relative clause contains a negation as well, as in (71) There’s nothing that they consider that they do not adjourn (LLC). We thank An Van linden (p.c.) for her translation of (122).
- 16.
Sisha-Halevy’s (2016) discussion of clefts in Modern Welsh does not systematically distinguish specificational from presentational clefts, but he makes the important point that clefts frequently occur in free indirect speech, where their conceptualizer is not the actual speaker.
- 17.
WordbanksOnline uses MX and FX to anonymize male and female proper names.
- 18.
Thus, of all types of specificational clefts, only clefts with identifying matrix trigger an exhaustiveness implicature due to the presence of the subjects it/that. The other types do not have implicatures of either exhaustiveness or non-exhaustiveness as no trigger of either is present. By contrast, specificational copulars and pseudo-clefts do offer a choice between exhaustiveness implicature and non-exhaustiveness implicature, the former triggered by a definite determiner in the variable NP and the latter by an indefinite determiner in the variable NP (see Sect. “Specificational Copular Clauses”).
- 19.
Textual retrievability is a precondition but not a sufficient reason for informationally presupposing the variable from the preceding text. Speakers may use a non-reduced cleft even if the relative clause is fully discourse-given and retrievable (Bourgoin, O’Grady & Davidse, 2021).
- 20.
This is a modified variant of the attested (WB) example On the train coming up, there was Roy Hatterson with a group of people.
- 21.
We reject Lambrecht’s (2002) claim that the bi-clausal syntax of presentational there- and have-clefts non-compositionally codes the information structure of a topic-focus relation, in which the topic is also itself the focus of the matrix clause. For examples of zero subject contact relatives, whose matrix contains verbs like know and meet, Haegeman et al. (2015) consider but reject the idea that they express a topic-comment structure. Haegeman et al. (2015) do not distinguish the specificational from the predicative readings of these constructions.
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Davidse, K., Njende, N.M., O’Grady, G. (2023). Structural Assemblies and Semantics of the Four Existential Constructions with Relative Clause. In: Specificational and Presentational There-Clefts. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-32270-9_7
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