On Some Issues Of There-be Construction

There-be construction, introduced by there which is one of the most basic and active lexical words, is a construction consequently used in spoken and written styles. However, owing to its complex syntactic properties such as indefiniteness of NP and unaccusative of verb, it is evident to be a hotly-discussed and problematic issue. Within several theoretical frameworks and from perspectives of syntax, semantics and pragmatics, information distribution, discourse function analyses, human cognitive perception and grammaticalization, this thesis analyses three main issues of There-be construction: (1) What's the derivation process of There-be construction? (2) What role does proform there play in There-be construction? (3) Why does it occur and is widely used, although it is a special construction?The thesis first introduces There-be construction's definition, characteristics and previous studies on it. So far, attention in the study of English There-be construction has been paid mainly to the following questions: the identification of the subject, 'there' inversion, unaccusitive of the verb, the case assignment of the post-verbal NP, the indefiniteness of the post-verbal NP and the Extensions. As to some questions, yet no satisfying conclusions have been found. Then the thesis expounds on some relevant theories: X-bar Theory, Movement, VP-internal Subject, VP shell Hypothesis, End-weight Principle, Information Distribution Principle, Theme and Rheme, Figure-ground Theory and Grammaticalization. The following parts of thesis begin to analyze three issues of There-be construction one by one. The derivation process analysis of There-be construction reveals: in this construction, the postverbal NP generates from Spec-VP and remains in situ in LF; the verb be comes from the node of V and then rises to v; the subject there originally occupies the position of Spec-vp and then rises to Spec-TP. Such a derivation could account for the case of postverbal argument and its agreement with the unaccusative verb be from the syntactic perspective. In syntax, the proform there not only occupies the subject position in form, but also behaves like a subject NP with respect to a number of syntactic transformations; in view of function, there works as a signal to the addressee that he must be prepared to direct his attention toward an item of new information and then emphasizes that some entity exists. The arguments for the occurrence of There-be construction are what the thesis centers on. The conclusion is that a linguistic construction occurs not for one factor, but under several ones. The arguments for the occurrence of There-be construction includes: 1) It appears for the sake of constructional need in accordance with end-weight principle; 2) It has special semantic and pragmatic effect that its non-existential counterparts don't have; 3) It conforms to information distribution principle; 4) It has several functions in discourse organization; 5) It tallies with human cognitive perception; 6) It reflects a result of grammaticalization.Although there are some drawbacks in the thesis, the author hopes that the study will push the studies on There-be construction a further step.