A Comparative Study On The Syntactic And Semantic Features Of Post-verbal NPs In English And Chinese Existential Pivotal Sentences

An existential sentence（henceforth ES）has always been the focus of study.It is a sentence that expresses the existence,appearance,disappearance of entities.In English and Chinese,the basic structure of an ES consists of three elements,including location,state of existence and existential entities.In addition to these three elements,there is the fourth element—extension,which describes the states of existential entities.Previous studies have discussed the syntactic status of each element in basic ESs and the relations between elements of basic ESs,but there is a neglect of analyses of ESs with the extensions（XPs）,for example,the analyses of existential pivotal sentences（EPSs）.The present study focuses on EPSs in English and Chinese.The basic structure of EPSs can be arranged as:LP（locative phrase）/there+VP（verb phrase）+NP（noun phrase）+XP（an extension）.When understanding EPSs,we find that NPs are the so-called pivots,which serve as both the patient or theme object of the first verb and the agent or S（zhushi or xishi）subject of the second predicate.This property of pivots seems to violate the requirements of theta-criterion（θ-criterion）.However,the presence of pivots does not affect the grammaticality of sentences.Little or no attention is paid to the pivots in EPSs.To fill the gap,within the framework of Minimalist Program（MP）,we explore the derivation of EPSs,and then figure out the syntactic and semantic features of pivot NPs.The research objectives of this study are twofold.First,we are going to figure out the syntactic mechanism of EPSs in English and Chinese,and then provide a unified explanation for the pivot puzzles in EPSs.Second,we attempt to account for the case feature and definiteness effect of post-verbal NPs in English and Chinese EPSs based on their derivation.Under the framework of MP,we try to answer three questions.First,how do the English and Chinese EPSs derive?Second,what’s behind the pivot puzzle in English and Chinese EPSs?Third,on the basis of the derivation of English and Chinese EPSs,how do the NPs receive their case feature and why is the occurrence of some formally definite nouns allowed in these contexts?The discussion suggests the following assumptions:（1）The XP,as an adjunct,adjoins to the pivot NP and describes states of NP.The subject position of XP is occupied by an empty pronoun,whose syntactic distribution in English EPSs is different from that in Chinese.Since the XPs in English EPSs are non-finite clauses,the subject position of XP is occupied by PRO.Since the XPs in Chinese EPSs are finite clauses,pro occupies its subject position.（2）Both PRO and pro haveθ-roles and serve as the subject of XPs.In addition,they both lack phonetic form,while post-verbal NPs are overtly expressed.The combined effect of covert empty pronouns and overt post-verbal NPs leads to the phenomenon that NPs receive dual theta-roles（θ-roles）.（3）Based on the derivation of English and Chinese EPSs,we consider an XP as an adjunct.Therefore,the insertion of XPs does not affect the syntactic status of NPs.After successive feature checking and valuation operations,it shows that NPs are assigned nominative case by finite Ts in matrix clauses.At the same time,XPs describe the states of NPs and provide new information.Based on information structure,it assumes that new information is usually located in sentence-final focus position.Thus,a larger NP([_NP NP[_adjunct XP]])at the end of an EPS always delivers new information,even if the larger NP might contain a definite noun.In this way,it provides some explanations for the occurrence of some definite nouns in EPSs.Under the framework of MP,this present study proposes that XPs,as adjuncts,adjoin to post-verbal NPs,and explores the syntactic derivation of EPSs in English and Chinese,and then explains the pivot puzzles in EPSs.Based on the derivation of EPSs,we have tackled the problems,including the case features of NPs and the permission of certain definite nouns in EPSs.As a result,solutions to these problems demonstrate the rationality and reliability of the proposed adjunct analysis.In addition,inspired by the adjunct analysis of XP in EPSs,we try to develop an interaction between syntactic structure of formal linguistics and information structure of functional linguistics,providing an explanation for the occasional occurrence of definite nouns in EPSs.Having had comprehensive knowledge of syntactic and semantic features of the pivot NPs in EPSs,we hope that the present study can provide an alternative perspective and bring positive effects on better understanding of ESs.