There-존재구문의 의미·화용적 분석 - 특정성 효과를 중심으로 -

Abstract

Park, Kee-Tae. “The Semantic-Pragmatic Analysis in the Existential There-Construction: focused on the Specificity Effect.” Studies in English Language & Literature 41.3 (2015): 135-152. There are some issues on inconsistent phenomena between practical language use and grammatical theory within the existential there-construction in English. Therefore, in this study, the aim is to point out the unsettled issues of "the definiteness effect" claiming that all associate NPs must be as indefinite expressions in many studies so far, and to prove that, as an alternative to settle down the issues, the theoretical adequacy of "the specificity effect" in Enç(1991) is more acceptable than that of the definiteness effect within the existential there-construction in English. In various comments, it has been broadly known that the definiteness effect prevents definite expressions from being as associate NPs after the predicative verb. In order to review several previous issues with the above remark from semantic-pragmatic perspectives, the fact that the definiteness effect may have the pragmatic nature will be discussed. With respect to this point, introducing “the specificity effect” which is counter to the definiteness effect, I discuss that all associate NPs must be interpreted as new information regardless of their definiteness. Thereby, I also discuss that the definite associates are reinterpreted, which is an inherent function different from that of the indefinite associates. In other words, the definite associates have the dual meanings (the dual functions) at the time of utterance. Thus, as one way to settle down the previous issues suggested in the existential construction with the definiteness effect, the role of "the specificity effect" must be very important to prove its theoretical pragmatic adequacy in the existential there-construction which asserts the existence of the postverbal entity of NP. (Konyang University)