DNPs In Existential-There Sentences: A Hearer-New Information Theory Approach

As one of the most common sentence patterns, existential-there sentences are widely used in both written and spoken English. This kind of sentence pattern always receives concern from linguists.Definiteness restriction of existential-there sentences arouses the interest of many linguists. In previous researches, linguists tried to explain this language phenomenon from syntactic, semantic and pragmatic perspectives. Although they have achieved a lot, a satisfactory explanation has not been given yet. Semantic and syntactic researchers explained definiteness restriction only at the sentences level, ignoring the influence of the discourse; while pragmatic researchers couldn't explain some ungrammatical information structure in existential-there sentences. From the discussion above, we can conclude that all these perspectives are too one-sided.This research is to discuss six kinds of definite noun phrases (DNPs) in existential-there sentences. More specifically it is to analyze these DNPs using hearer-new information theory. Compared with previous research, this research is more systematic. It discusses every kind of DNPs in existential-there sentences, which include: determiner+N, demonstrative+N, possessive+N, personal pronouns, proper nouns and universal quantifier+N. Then it analyzes how and why these DNPs can be used in contextualized, kind, reminder, list, and partitive existential-there sentences.This thesis takes a new approach to the study of DNPs in existential-there sentences. That is, based on examples, it analyzes these DNPs in different types of existential-there sentences by using hearer-new information theory.Through the study of DNPs in existential-there sentences, this thesis has made following major findings: firstly, through the discussion of six kinds of DNPs in existential-there sentences, we have a clear understanding of the existence of these DNPs in existential-there sentences. Secondly, this thesis finds that compared with the syntactic, semantic, and pragmatic perspectives, the hearer-new information theory has a stronger explanation power. In conventional context, DNPs can't be applied in existential-there sentences by the reason that DNPs express hearer-old information. However, in certain discourses, DNPs can be used in existential-there sentences because they convey hearer-new information.