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Carmen Conti Jiménez
Existential sentences with preposed locative phrases and postverbal determinerless subjects in Spanish
In this article, I will deal with sentences consisting of preposed locative phrases and postverbal determinerless subjects. Most generative grammarians have analyzed these sentences as examples of unaccusative or unaccusativized predications, in which the postverbal determinerless phrase is characterized as an internal argument. I will claim, however, that these agreeing determinerless phrases are nominative constituents inherently predicative, which get referential content and argument status, thus triggering a proper agreement relation with the verb inflection, its extensional nucleus. In addition, I will argue that the sentences in focus, headed by intransitives (unaccusatives and pure intransitives), but also by transitive verbs, are complex existential predications composed of a locative main predication modified by an activity or accomplishment secondary predication. I will explain also why the preposed locative phrases are obligatory and must fill the topic. Complex existential predication sentences in Spanish will be compared with ne-cliticization in Italian and there-insertion sentences in English. The semantic representation is based on Van Valin and LaPolla (1997).
Linguistics, Walter de Gruyter
Print ISSN: 0024-3949
Volume: 43, 10/2005
Pages: 1079 - 1104