Laure Sarda | LATTICE – CNRS, Ecole Normale Supérieure-PSL | Université Paris Sorbonne Nouvelle
This paper addresses the relationships between the existential reading of sentences with an indefinite subject and the presence of a spatial anchoring constituent. We investigated a corpus of French sentences with indefinite subjects in preverbal position and their translation into Hungarian. While French has a rather rigid word order, Hungarian is a discourse configurational language which signals the informational status of sentence constituents. Through the prism of differentiations made in the Hungarian translation, we distinguished two groups of indefinite subject sentences, one having a thetic interpretation, the other retaining a categorical – or categorical-like – interpretation despite the indefinite form of the subject. These sentences illustrate the fact that while indefinite NPs are known to be bad topics, they can nevertheless play this role to various degrees.
1997Restrictions on the degree of referentiality of arguments in Hungarian sentences. Acta Linguistica Hungarica, 44(3–4), 341–362.
Attal, P.
1976Indéfinis et structures sémantiques. Faits de langue, 4, 187–195.
Carlier, A.
2005L’argument davidsonien : un critère de distinction entre les prédicats « stage level » et les prédicats « individual level » ?. Travaux de linguistique, 50, 13–35.
Carlier, A., & Sarda, L.
2010Le complément de la localisation spatiale : entre argument et adjoint. In F. Neveu., V. Muni-Toké., J. Durand., T. Klingler, L. Mondada, & S. Prévost (Eds.), Actes du CMLF’10 (2057–2073). Paris: ILF.
Carlson, G. N.
1977A unified analysis of the English bare plural. Linguistics and Philosophy, 9, 5–16.
Chafe, W.
1976Givenness, contrastiveness, definiteness, subjects, topics and point of view. In C. N. Li (Ed.), Subject and topic (27–55). New York: Academic Press.
Dobrovie-Sorin, C.
1997aClasses de prédicats, distribution des indéfinis et la distinction thétique-catégorique. Le gré des langues, 12, 58–97.
Dobrovie-Sorin, C.
1997bTypes of predicates and the representation of existential readings. In A. Lawson (Ed.), SALT VII (117–134). Ithaca: Cornell University.
Dowty, D.
1986The effects of aspectual class on the temporal structure of discourse: semantics or pragmatics?. Linguistics and Philosophy, 9, 37–61.
É. Kiss, K.
1995Definiteness effect revisited. In I. Kenesei (Ed.), Approaches to Hungarian Vol 5. (63–88). Szeged: JATE Press.
É. Kiss, K.
1998Identificational focus versus information focus. Language, 74, 245–273.
É. Kiss, K.
2002The syntax of Hungarian. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Erteschik-Shir, N.
1997The dynamics of focus structure. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Erteschik-Shir, N.
2013Information structure and (in)definiteness. Syntax and Semantics, 39, 23–51.
Furukawa, N.
2006Énoncés athématiques, point d’ancrage et indéfinis. in F. Corblin, S. Ferrando, & L. Kupferman (Eds.), Indéfinis et prédication (83–96). Paris: Presses de la Sorbonne
Gécseg, Zs
2006Topic, logical subject and sentence structure in Hungarian. Acta Linguistica Hungarica, 53, 139–174.
Gécseg, Zs
2019The syntactic position of the subject in Hungarian existential constructions. Argumentum, 15, 545–560.
Gécseg, Zs., & Kiefer, F.
2009A new look at information structure in Hungarian. Natural language and linguistic theory, 27, 583–622.
Geist, L.
2010Bare singular NPs in argument positions: restrictions on indefiniteness. International Review of Pragmatics, 2(2), 191–227.
Gosselin, L.
2018L’Aspect verbal. In Encyclopédie grammaticale du français, available online at: [URL]
Gosselin, L.
2021Aspect et formes verbales en français, Coll. : Domaines linguistiques, n° 17 : Grammaires et représentations de la langue, n° 10, Classique Garnier, Paris.
Gundel, J.
1985‘Shared knowledge’ and topicality. Journal of Pragmatics, 9, 83–107.
Gundel, J.
1988Universals of topic-comment structure. In M. Hammond, E. Moravcsik, & J. Wirth (Eds.), Studies in Syntactic Typology [Typological Studies in Language 17] (209–239). Amsterdam & Philadelphia: John Benjamins.
Gundel, J. K., & Fretheim, T.
2004Information structure. In L. Horn, & G. Ward (Eds.), The Handbook of Pragmatics (175–196). Malden: Blackwell Publishers.
Gyuris, B.
2009The semantics and pragmatics of the contrastive topic in Hungarian. Budapest: Lexica Kiadó
Gyuris, B.
2013The information structure of Hungarian. In M. Krifka, & R. Musan (Eds.), The expression of information structure (159–186). Berlin & New York: Mouton de Gruyter.
von Heusinger, K.
2011Specificity. In K. von Heusinger, C. Maienborn, & P. Portner (Eds.), Semantics: An international handbook of natural language meaning. Vol 2. (1024–10579). Berlin: de Gruyter.
Hoekstra, T., & Mulder, R.
1990Unergatives as copular verbs; locational and existential predication. The Linguistic Review, 7, 1–79.
Huumo, T.
This volume. The Finnish existential clause: Aspect, case marking and quantification of the S argument. In L. Sarda, & L. Lena Eds. Existential constructions across languages: Forms, meanings and functions 220 245 Amsterdam & Philadelphia: John Benjamins.
Kálmán, L.
1985Word order in neutral sentences. In I. Kenesei (Ed.), Approaches to Hungarian Vol. 1. Data and descriptions (13–23). Szeged: JATE Press.
Kálmán, L.
1995Definiteness effect verbs in Hungarian. In I. Kenesei (Ed.), Approaches to Hungarian Vol 5. (221–242). Szeged: JATE Press.
1996Az igeaspektus areális-tipológiai szempontból. Magyar Nyelv, 92(3), 257–268.
Kleiber, G.
1981Problèmes de référence: Descriptions définies et noms propres. Paris: Klincksieck.
Kleiber, G.
2001Indéfinis: lecture existentielle et lecture partitive. In G. Kleiber, B. Laca, & L. Tasmowski (Eds.), Typologie des groupes nominaux (47–97). Rennes: Presses Universitaires de Rennes.
Kratzer, A.
1995Stage-level and individual-level predicates. In G. N. Carlson, & F. J. Pelletier (Eds.), The generic book (125–175). Chicago: Chicago University Press.
Kuroda, S. Y.
1971Le jugement catégorique et le jugement thétique. Exemples tirés de la langue japonaise. Langages, 30, 81–110.
Ladusaw, W. A.
1994Thetic and categorical, stage and individual, weak and strong. In M. Harvey, & L. Santelmann (Eds.), Proceedings from Semantics and Linguistic Theory4. (220–229). Ithaca: CLC Publications.
Lahousse, K.
2003NP-Subject inversion in French and (preposed) adverbs. In A. T. Pérez-Leroux, & Y. Roberge (Eds.), Romance linguistics: Theory and acquisition. Selected papers from the 32nd Linguistic Symposium on Romance Languages (LSRL), Toronto, April 2002 (181–196). Amsterdam & Philadelphia: John Benjamins.
Lahousse, K.
2007Implicit stage topics. Discours [En ligne], 1 | 2007, online April 02 2008, consulted on March 24th 2023. URL: [URL];
Lambrecht, K.
1994Information structure and sentence form: Topic, focus and the mental representation of discourse referents. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Lena, L.
This volume. Partition and existence: The case of you ren ‘there’s someone, there are people’ in Chinese. In L. Sarda, & L. Lena Eds. Existential constructions across languages: Forms, meanings and functions 245 282 Amsterdam & Philadelphia: John Benjamins.
Maleczki, M.
1992Bare common nouns and their relation to the temporal construction of events in Hungarian. In P. Dekker, & M. Stokhof (Eds.), Proceedings of the Eighth Amsterdam Colloquium (347–365). Amsterdam: ILLC, Department of Philosophy, University of Amsterdam.
Maleczki, M.
1995On the Definiteness effect in Hungarian (a semantic approach). In I. Kenesei (Ed.), Approaches to Hungarian Vol 5. (263–284). Szeged: JATE Press.
Maleczki, M.
2001Indefinite arguments in Hungarian. In I. Kenesei (Ed.), Argument structure in Hungarian (157–199). Budapest: Akadémiai Kiadó.
2010On the definiteness effect in existential sentences: Data and theories. In E. Németh T., & K. Bibok (Eds.), The role of data at the semantics-pragmatics interface (25–56). Berlin & New York: Mouton de Gruyter.
Matlock, T.
2004Fictive motion as cognitive simulation. Memory & Cognition, 32(8), 1389–1400.
1981The semantics of topic-focus articulation. In J. Groenendijk, T. Janssem, & M. Stokhof (Eds.), Formal methods in the study of language (513–541). Amsterdam: Mathematisch Centrum.
1997Strategies for scope taking. In A. Szabolcsi (Ed.), Ways of scope taking. Studies in Linguistics and Philosophy65 (109–154), Dordrecht: Springer.
Talmy, L.
2000Toward a Cognitive Semantics, Vol. 1 Concept Structuring Systems. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.
Van De Velde, D.
This volume. Is the French verb manquer ‘lack, miss’ a negative existential predicate? In L. Sarda, & L. Lena Eds. Existential constructions across languages: Forms, meanings and functions 284 300 Amsterdam & Philadelphia: John Benjamins.
Viszket, A.
2004Argumentumstruktúra és lexikon. PhD dissertation. Budapest: University Eötvös Loránd.
Vogeleer, S. & Tasmowsky, L.
2005Les N, un N et des N en lecture générique. Travaux de linguistique, 50, 53–78.
Waldenfels, R.
2011Recent developments in ParaSol: Breadth for depth and XSLT based web concordancing with CWB. In D. Majchrakova, & R. Garabík (Eds.), Natural language processing, multilinguality. Proceedings of Slovko 2011 (156–162). Bratislava: Tribun.
Zemach, E.
1979Four ontologies. In F. J. Pelletier (Ed.), Mass Terms: Some Philosophical problems (63–80). Dordrecht: Reidel.
Cited by (1)
Cited by 1 other publications
Sarda, Laure, F. Neveu, S. Prévost, A. Montébran, A. Steuckardt, G. Bergounioux, G. Merminod & G. Philippe
2024. Un brouillard flotte au fond du ravin – Les prédicats de quelques noms météorologiques. SHS Web of Conferences 191 ► pp. 12015 ff.
This list is based on CrossRef data as of 4 july 2024. Please note that it may not be complete. Sources presented here have been supplied by the respective publishers.
Any errors therein should be reported to them.