Summary Details
| Query: |
Existential Constructions
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| Author: | Ljuba Veselinova | |
| Submitter Email: | click here to access email | |
| Linguistic LingField(s): |
General Linguistics
Typology |
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| Summary: |
Here comes a summary of the responses to my query sent on the LINGUIST
List, issue 18.1143. http://linguistlist.org/issues/18/18-1143.html#1 I asked for data on existential constructions, especially from languages where at least two different kinds are observed: one that is pragmatically unmarked as in (i) and another that is pragmatically marked as in (2) (i) There is such a thing as non-alcoholic beer (ii) Non-alcoholic beer exists My warmest thanks go to Werner Abraham (German) Michael Barrie (European Portuguese) Madalena Cruz-Ferreira (European and Brazilian Portuguese) Ivano Caponigro (Italian) Katalin Mady (Hungarian) Matti Miestamo (Finnish) Lameen Souag (Algerian Arabic) Individual responses German (Werner Abraham): ====== (i) Da ist so was wie nichtalkoholisches Bier.NOM (ii) Nichtalkoholisches Bier.NOM existiert But German tends to say that differently: (iii) Da gibt es so etwas wie nichtalkoholische Bier.ACC there gives EXPL so something like non-alcoholic beer (iv) Es gibt (so etwas wie) naB.ACC ... the best, idiomatically, most unmarked! Clearly, each of these are TP-clauses - i.e., they have no topic and, consequently, do not reach up to CP! See my last article in Schwabe&Winkler (eds.) ''Information structure ...'' 2007 published by John Benjamins, Amsterdam. The sentence in (ii) is pragmatically highly marked. The normal/frequently used construction is with left dislocation as in (v) (v) Nichtalkoholisches Bier, DAS gibt es. 'non-alc. beer, that gives it' Portuguese (European & Brazilian), (Michael Barrie, Madalena Cruz-Ferreira) ======== The data below are from Madalena Cruz-Ferreira. Michael Barrie gave me a lead that I still need to check. In (European) Portuguese, the equivalents would be: (i) H�� cerveja sem ��lcool where 'H��' is an inflected verbal form -- the verb is 'haver', cognate of English 'have'. Brazilian Portuguese uses 'tem' instead of 'h��', from the verb 'ter' which translates as English 'have'. (ii) Cerveja sem ��lcool existe with the verb 'existir'. In case this is relevant, the constituent order here is free. You can also say: (i) Cerveja sem ��lcool h�� (ii) Existe cerveja sem ��lcool The constructions with ���exist��� are more formal/technical and thus pragmatically marked. Italian (Ivano Caponigro) ===== (1) Non ci sono birre alcooliche. not there are beers alcoholic (2) Non esistono birre alcooliche. not exist beers alcoholic Hungarian (Katalin Mady) ======== The equivalent to the sentence ''there is such a thing as...'' would be Van olyan, hogy alkoholmentes s��r. (Is such as non-alcoholic beer.) negation: Nincs olyan, hogy alkoholmentes s��r. or L��etezik olyan, hogy alkoholmentes s��r. (Exists such as non-alcoholic beer.) Nem l��etezik olyan, hogy alkoholmentes s��r. Please note that the first construction ''van olyan, hogy...'' has a slightly different meaning in colloquial Hungarian. It can be used for ''There are situations when.../sometimes...''. An example: ''There are times when you don't bother to get up in the morning.'': Van olyan, hogy az embernek reggel nincs kedve felkelni. (Is such that one....) Finnish (Matti Miestamo) ====== Finnish has the following construction: Alkoholi-ton-ta olut-ta on ole-ma-ssa alcohol-less-PART beer-PART be.3SG be-NMLZ-INE 'Non-alcoholic beer exists.' Without the nominalized ''olemassa'' 'in being' this would be an unmarked exstential, but with it I would say this is the kind of marked construction you are looking for. The dictionary translation for the English word ''exist'' is ''olla olemassa'' (lit. 'to be in being'). Arabic (Algerian) (Lameen Souag) ====== In Algerian Arabic, there is an ���exist��� construction, y-igzisti ''it exists'', borrowed from French. ''There is'' is normally kayen, etymologically a participle ''being'' (irregular negative makash.) This word sometimes agrees in number and gender with its referent and sometimes doesn't. The French loan is fairly rarely used. You might use it, for example, to render something like ''Je pense donc je suis'' - you simply can't say *kayen ana (any more than you could say ''there's me'' in English with the intended meaning of ''I exist'' rather than ''I am part of the set in question''), so if you had to say it, you would use n-igzisti ''I exist''. A brief search of online chats reveals a number of examples, almost all combined with some degree of codeswitching but that's normal for Algerian online chat: * hahahaha mazal yexisti had nou3 taa les femmes? (lol does this kind of women still exist?) ( www.algeria.com/forums/open-board-forum-libre/8741-lazzzzzhar-come-here-yeddik-mourak-6.html) * Antik yerhem waldik, can u send me the link of derja dikssiounaire blenglizia ila yexisti bien sour (Antik please can u send me the link of Darja Dictionary in English if it exists of course) (www.algeria.com/forums/17932-post23.html ) * Hiphop ma zal yexisti (Hiphop still exists) (www.algerie-dz.com/forums/archive/index.php/t-3451.html ) * en deux mots : ma yexistich en un mot makachou. (In two words: it doesn't exist. In one word: it's not here.) ( www.algerie-dz.com/forums/archive/index.php/t-43074-p-6.html) * c un ideal li ma yexistich (It's an ideal that doesn't exist) ( forum.dzfoot.com/viewtopic.php?p=880679&sid=142a35056296fcdb149c78d4a9e824c8) * ma tinsistich, Si Djamal, hadi ma texistich. (Don't insist, Mr. Djamal, such a woman doesn't exist.) ( http://www.geocities.com/actpol/V20CaricaturesHalli.html) * t7eb tegzisti lioum (You want to exist today) (Tunisian - http://www.kafteji.com/forum/index.php?s=15f7d4c774502caa39141464b381f7f1&showtopic=15872&st=20&p=612675&#entry612675 ) I think part of the reason for using ''igzisti'' is that ''kayen'' can easily receive a more local reading (exist here, so to speak), while ''exist'' by default covers the entire universe. Part is probably simply bilinguals not finding a real translation equivalent and deciding they need one. There is certainly no verb in Algerian Arabic (other than igzisti) which corresponds to ''exist''. In Classical Arabic, a common verbal near-equivalent is the passive of ''find'' (wjd), but I think that if you look in detail there are differences in its usage. -------End of Individual responses------ As we can see, the languages where a marked ���exist��� construction is observed are all from Europe or its immediate surroundings. Naturally, it is tempting to describe this as a pan-European phenomenon (which it probably is but it would be nice to have more data). I will be working on existentials and their negation for a while, so I would be interested to get data from other languages than those already mentioned. Again, many thanks to all who responded. Cheers, Ljuba |
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| LL Issue: | 18.1301 | |
| Date Posted: | 30-Apr-2007 | |
| Original Query: | Read original query | |
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