Kim, Jae-Min (1993). On the Existential Construction : Definite NP and functional feature Assignment Linguistics, Vol 1. In this paper, I try to show that existential constructions have the feature of [+Existent] in Infl and [-Unique] in the theme NP....
Kim, Jae-Min (1993). On the Existential Construction : Definite NP and functional feature Assignment Linguistics, Vol 1. In this paper, I try to show that existential constructions have the feature of [+Existent] in Infl and [-Unique] in the theme NP. Also I argue that the feature [Existent] is assigned either by copular be and locative phrase or by event verbs that ascribe existence or visibility to the speaker, and the feature [unique] is determined in the discourse context which makes the theme NP lose uniqueness in designating its referent. With the two features, we can appropriately explain crosslinguistic data which have the definite theme NP in existential constructions, which cannot be explained by Freeze's (1992) [+Locative] feature. Going a step forward, I claim that Locative - null NP - VP structure of Korean is an existential construction, and Locative - deixis + NP - VP is a locative inversion construction.