Existentialization Of The Verbs In Non-canonical Existential Constructions

Following the research on unaccusative and unergative verbs (Burzio1986,Perlmutter1978), most of the generative linguists consider the verbs in existentialconstructions (henceforth ECs) as unaccusatives, and existential constructions areconsidered an unaccusativity diagnostics (Alexiadou and Sch fer2011, Bresnan andKanerva1989, Coopmans1989, Culicover and Levine2001, Hoekstra and Mulder1990). But through analyzing authentic English and Chinese language materials, itcan be seen that besides unaccusative verbs, unergative verbs and even transitiveverbs are allowed in ECs (Levin and Rappaport1995, Yang and Sui2009, Yang1999). Therefore, two questions have to be answered: why are unergative verbs andtransitive verbs allowed in ECs, and how are ECs containing unergative verbs andtransitive verbs derived?Many previous discussions have tried to answer (Levin and Rapport1995,Bresnan and Kanerva1989, Hoekstra and Mulder1990, Mateu2002, Mendikoetxea2006, Tang2005) these two questions, including the meaning-shift analysis (Levinand Rappaport1995), the small clause analysis and so on. The previous discussions,in essence, all suggest that the unergative verbs and transitive verbs in ECs are‘unaccusativized’. After being ‘unaccusativized’, unergative verbs and transitiveverbs are allowed in ECs. However, the ‘unaccusativization’ theories, including themeaning-shift analysis and the small clause analysis, are all deficient in some way,failing to fully account for ECs containing unergative verbs and transitive verbs.After reviewing previous discussions, the author of this dissertation proposesthat there is a light verb EXIST in ECs containing unergative verbs and transitiveverbs. The unergative verbs and transitive verbs in ECs are ‘existentialized’ by thelight verb EXIST after merging with the light verb EXIST. The proposal of the lightverb EXIST and the syntactic process Existentialization is based on the basic semantic property of canonical ECs which contain unaccusative verbs and thedistinct semantic properties of the non-canonical ECs which contain unergativeverbs and transitive verbs. After being ‘existentialized’ by the light verb EXIST,unergative verbs and transitive verbs have their semantic and syntactic propertieschanged. Thus unergative verbs and transitive verbs are allowed in ECs and thederivational process of non-canonical ECs can be easily accounted for.The proposal of the light verb EXIST and the syntactic processExistentialization applies to both English ECs which contain unergative verbs andpassivized transitive verbs and Chinese ECs which contain transitive verbs. With theproposal of the light verb EXIST and the syntactic process Existentialization, manylong-pending issues concerning ECs can also been solved, such as the semanticproperties and syntactic status of the expletive there, PP and so on. Therefore,proposal of the light verb EXIST and the syntactic process Existentialization shouldbe considered reasonable.