Subjectification Of There: From Deictic To Existential

The adverb there is familiar to us. It usually appears in sentences like the following example (bold-face represents stress):(1) Look, there is a book on the desk. There in example (1) is generally treated as a locative adverb indicating the subject's (here book's) location. We also find in our daily life such sentences similar to example (1) in form. For example (bold-face represents stress):(2) There is a book on the desk. Sentences like example (2) are usually defined by linguists as existential sentences. There in example (2) is generally regarded as an expletive function word which is used to introduce the following notional subject. Thus we are confronted with a question. Why can the two theres with different meanings appear in similar (or even the same in some instances) forms?Cognitive linguist Lakoff has carried out an exhaustive research on there. He points out that sentences like example (1) and (2) actually belong to two kinds of there-constructions, namely, deictic there-constructions and existential there- constructions.According to Lakoff's (1987) definition of there-constructions, deictic there-constructions refer to sentences with locative adverb there in clause-initial position. They are usually used to direct the hearer's attention to something present. Existential there-constructions are used to bring something to the hearer's awareness. Thus, different from deictic there, existential there refers to the existence of an entity or entities. However, among the countless researches on there, few have mentioned the relationship between deictic there and existential there.This study, therefore, is intended to explore English there-constructions within the framework of cognitive linguistics. By conducting the present research, the author aims to search out the relationship between the meaning of two theres, which appear in...