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Chapitre d'ouvrage Année : 2023

Existential constructions : In search of a definition

Résumé

Since the first formulation by Jespersen, the existential construction has never ceased to interest linguists, who have offered an increasingly fine-grained picture of its properties. The contributions to this volume shed new light on various facets of existential constructions, from a multiplicity of angles and methodological approaches. The semantic relations between existence, possession and location are traced back to the origins of the construction. The polyfunctionality of existential and related constructions, and the semantic differences between several competing constructions are depicted in a contrastive or diachronic way. The constraints on arguments of the construction, their quantification and definiteness restrictions are studied in relation to the presence of a locative and the information-structure properties of existentials. The final point of interest is the negation of existence, and the linguistic paradox contained in the very fact of asserting the non-existence of something. Despite the variety of approaches, the contributors to this volume investigate the existential (and related) constructions from a functional perspective, by measuring them against other constructions available within a particular language, by adopting a constrastive approach between two or more languages, by considering the information structure properties of these constructions and by relying on different sources of corpus data, that is, studying the use of existentials in actual contexts. Although the existential construction has been defined by its non-canonical morphosyntax, sentences following a canonical word order are also studied in this volume and their existential function is discussed. In over a century of studies on the prototypical existential construction, we have gained a deep understanding of its structural manifestations across languages and of its semantic and pragmatic properties. Future investigations could usefully focus on the functional relation between central and peripheral existential constructions, and between specialized and non-specialized existential constructions, both within the same language and across languages.
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halshs-03952958, version 1 (23-01-2023)

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  • HAL Id : halshs-03952958 , version 1

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Laure Sarda, Ludovica Lena. Existential constructions : In search of a definition. Laure Sarda & Ludovica Lena. Existential Constructions across Languages Forms, meanings and functions, 76, John Benjamins Publishing Compagny, pp.1-31, inPress, Human Cognitive Processing (HCP) - Cognitive Foundations of Language Structure and Use, isbn 978 90 272 1367 9. ⟨halshs-03952958⟩
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