A syntactic and semantic analysis of an alternative existential construction

This study examines an alternative existential construction available to speakers of some dialects of English. The standard English existential construction consists of there plus be, as in There is a book on the table. For some English speakers, an alternative existential construction consists of it plus be, as in It's a book on the table. Based on data from several lines of investigation, this study attempts to answer these questions: What syntactic and semantic factors have contributed to the existence of this alternative construction? Why is it still used?;After establishing the syntactic and semantic properties of the standard existential construction, existentials are investigated crosslinguistically. The influence of Irish is found to be a factor reinforcing the use of the alternative form. Continued use of the alternative construction is understandable because of the nonreferential nature of both there and it and because of the pragmatic purposes served by both constructions.