The Definiteness Effect (DE) in existential contexts appears as a robust constraint in some languages (Spanish) while it seems to be absent in others (Italian, Catalan). However, a closer inspection of Italian and Catalan data shows that the DE has some presence in those languages as well, when the coda of the existential is explicit and occurs inside the VP. This paper investigates the effects produced by the coda on definiteness, and connects such effects to other constraints on the licensing of postverbal subjects, all ultimately tied to nformation structure. I suggest that a classbetween definiteness and Focus structure is at the origin of the DE, when definite expressions resist insertion into pure thetic or Broad Focus sentences.
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Ciconte, Francesco Maria
2011. The emergence and the reanalysis of the existential proform: evidence from early Italo‐Romance. Transactions of the Philological Society 109:3 ► pp. 284 ff.
Crisma, Paola
2012. Quantifiers in Italian. In Handbook of Quantifiers in Natural Language [Studies in Linguistics and Philosophy, 90], ► pp. 467 ff.
2023. Non-subject oriented existential, possessive and dative-experiencer constructions in Modern Hebrew – a cross-linguistic typological approach. STUF - Language Typology and Universals 76:4 ► pp. 545 ff.
Jiménez‐Fernández, Ángel L. & Vassilios Spyropoulos
2013. Feature Inheritance, vP Phases and the Information Structure of Small Clauses. Studia Linguistica 67:2 ► pp. 185 ff.
KARSSENBERG, LENA
2017. Frenchil y aclefts, existential sentences and the Focus-Marking Hypothesis. Journal of French Language Studies 27:3 ► pp. 405 ff.
Kuo, Pei-Jung
2022. Contextualized Existential Constructions in Mandarin Chinese. Lanaguage Research 58:3 ► pp. 177 ff.
Lena, Ludovica
2023. The (Non-)acquisition of the Chinese Definiteness Effect: A Usage-Based Account. In Learner Corpora: Construction and Explorations in Chinese and Related Languages [Chinese Language Learning Sciences, ], ► pp. 257 ff.
Margaza, Panagiota & Anna Gavarró
2023. Subject position and verb class in L2 Greek and L2 Spanish. Second Language Research► pp. 026765832311627 ff.
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2022. De l’usage existentiel des verbes de perception. SHS Web of Conferences 138 ► pp. 11002 ff.
Müller, Henrik Høeg
2017. Bare nouns in Danish with special reference to the object position. Nordic Journal of Linguistics 40:1 ► pp. 37 ff.
Perpiñán, Silvia
2014. Locatives and existentials in L2 Spanish: The acquisition of the semantic contrasts amongser, estarandhaber. Second Language Research 30:4 ► pp. 485 ff.
2022. When subjects frame the clause: discontinuous noun phrases as an iconic strategy for marking thetic constructions. Linguistics 60:3 ► pp. 865 ff.
van der Wal, Jenneke
2022. A Featural Typology of Bantu Agreement,
Wang, Yong
2021. Entity- vs. event-existentials: A new typology. Australian Journal of Linguistics 41:2 ► pp. 195 ff.
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