earticle

영어

This paper explores the mapping between word order and information structure in the expletive ‘there,' the presentational ‘there' and the locative inversion constructions in English. We argue that this mapping is ascribed to the syntactic property of the Case and the EPP features. First, in the locative inversion construction the subject stays in situ in its base-generated position, with its nominative Case checked by the AGREE relation with T, whereas the locative PP undergoes movement to the [Spec, TP] position. As the postverbal subject is EPP-wise weak and the raised PP is EPP-wise strong, it follows that the first is interpreted as having discourse-newer properties than the second. Second, in the expletive ‘there' construction the postverbal associate NP enters into Partitive Case checking relation with the ‘be' verb and undergoes raising to the [Spec, PassiveP] or [Spec, VoiceP] position. It is noteworthy that syntactic Partitive Case checking is crucially responsible for the fact that the postverbal associate NP in the expletive ‘there' construction is interpreted as hearer-new. Third, in the presentational ‘there' construction the postverbal subject undergoes rightward movement to the periphery of vP. We attribute to its structural surface position the fact that the rightward-moved postverbal subject in the presentational ‘there' construction is interpreted as discourse-new.