There구문의 형태변형과 원인 분석

Abstract

The purpose of this paper is to demonstrate that, in the analysis of There Construction(TC), the action of visual impact at the time of discourse and the concept on objects should be considered. These two factors affect the informativeness on the object and make it recognized by the listener as Old Information even if it is not mentioned at the time of the discourse. Therefore, they can be quasi-verbal factors that can cause Morphological Variants in TC. In this study, away from the stereotype that the factors which affect the informativeness are expressed only in the preceding utterances, the visual impact and the concept on the object are presented as representative quasi-verbal factors which can affect the information structure. If there is visual impact on an object, the object is visible for the listener. Thus, even if not mentioned, it can be a topic. As a result, it can cause Morphological Variants such as omitting topics, word order transformation and word selection differences in TC. Two arguments in TC that could not be resolved by syntactic explanation are presented as typical Morphological Variants in this paper. The first one is as follows. In TC, the nouns such as Definite NPs, Proper Nouns, Pronouns and Universal Quantifiers are not allowed as propositions. So Millsark(1977:4) presented the Definiteness Restriction. However, TCs which introduce Definite NP as a proposition are often used in pragmatical conversation. The other argument is Number Agreement in TC. In the theory of pragmatics as well as syntax, the reason why 'There're' is accepted awkward but 'There's' is naturally used as a contraction for 'There are' still remains as a challenge. In addition, sentences that take plural verbs are sometimes used even if the number of noun phrase close to the main verb is singular. There is lack of explanation why those things happen. It is regrettable that the existing research on those matters did not take into account the quasi-verbal factors at the time of the discourse. The visual impact does not always provide the same amount of information. This is because visibility may vary depending on the environmental conditions in which the discourse occurs and the nature of the object being introduced. So, the Operational Degree of the Visual Impact is presented in this paper. As the factors that can cause Morphological Variants in TC, the differences in the visibility of abstract objects and material objects, the nature of the spatio-temporal background which indicates the location of objects are mentioned. The informativeness from (non)visibility can be expressed in noun phrases that precede the prepositional phrase and the semantic characteristics of the words representing the spatio-temporal background of the object. As a result, an analysis that takes into account the visual impact enables explanations of the Morphological Variants in TC which could not be explained in the previous analysis which is based on the preceding utterances. Thus, in the analysis of TC, the Operational Degree of Visual Impact and the concept on objects should be considered. The condition to discuss whether the TC is correct or incorrect is formed only when those factors are taken into account.