Linguistic Society of America
Definiteness and Existentials
Author(s): Barbara Abbott
Source: Language, Vol. 73, No. 1 (Mar., 1997), pp. 103-108
Published by: Linguistic Society of America
Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/416595
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DISCUSSION NOTE
Definiteness and Existentials
BARBARAABBOTT
Michigan State University
Prince 1992reanalyzedthe informationstatus of NPs into two cross-cutting
distinctions,one between NPs denotingentities that are new or old with respect
to the discourse and another between NPs denoting entities that, in the
speaker'sestimation,are new or old with respect to the addressee.The category
of HEARER-NEW
NPs, equivalent to the category 'brand-new' of Prince 1981,
contains NPs denotingentities that the speaker assumes to be unknownto the
addressee. The hearer-oldcategory contrasts with discourse-old in including
discourse-newNPs that denote entities the speakerassumes to be in the addressee's long termmemorystore; 'in the permanentregistry'(Kuno 1972), 'culturally copresent' (Clark and Marshall 1981), 'unused' (Prince 1981), are other
descriptionsof similar ideas cited by Prince (1992: 301-2). Hence discourseold NPs are assumed to be a subset of hearer-oldNPs ('since hearers are expected to rememberwhat they have been told' (Prince 1992:303)), but a proper
subset.*
Princefoundthat (morphologicallydefined)definitenessin NPs largelycorrelates with their being hearer-old.This reflects the familiarityaspect of definiteness. Princenotedin passing, however, thatnot all definitesare hearer-old.1She
hadalreadyacknowledgedthe abilityof definitesto occur in there-sentences,as
in l.
(1) a. There were the same people at both conferences. [= Prince 1992,
ex. Sa]
b. There was the usual crowd at the beach. [= Prince 1992, ex. Sb]
c. There was the stupidestarticleon the readinglist. f= Prince 1992,
ex. 5c]
In discussing these examples she remarked, 'There-sentencesdo not require
indefinite NPs at all: rather, they require Hearer-new NPs' (302). In la, for
example, it is presumablyuniqueness (instead of familiarity)that licenses the
definite article in the same people, while hearer-newnessis held to license the
NP's occurrencein a there-sentence.In 'Definiteness and the English existential', Ward& Birner(WB)attemptto establishthis idea more thoroughly,using
a large corpus of naturallyoccurringdata. Serious problemsremain, however.
There are three categories of apparentcounterexamplesto the hearer-new
principle. Two of these are discussed by WB, who attempt to describe the
examples in a way that will make them actually consistent with the principle.
* I am grateful to Larry Horn, Ellen Prince, and two anonymous referees for their comments
on earlier drafts of this note.
1
This is a reflection, in part, of the uniqueness aspect of definiteness. See Birner & Ward 1994
for an excellent discussion of the problems of finding a satisfactory unified characterization of
definiteness in English.
103
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LANGUAGE, VOLUME 73, NUMBER 1 (1997)
104
I will argue that the resulting notion of hearer-newnesshas diverged significantly from the originalidea. At best this would be misleading.However I will
also argue that no notion of hearer-newnessis adequateto account for all the
data. The third type of problematic there-sentence, an example of which is
cited by WB but not discussed in connection with their analysis, reinforcesthis
conclusion. Finally, I'll suggest what I see as the root of the problem.
The first problematiccategoryI want to consideris illustratedby the example
given in 2.
(2) Like voters everywhere, Montanansare in a resentfulmood, andMarlenee is adept at exploitingthat resentment.... To add to his troubles,
Williamsused to be chairmanof the subcommitteeoverseeing grants
to the National Endowmentfor the Arts, and he firmly defended the
agency against charges that it funded 'obscene' art works.
That's what won him the supportof Keillor, who said, 'It's a measure of the man when he's courageous when it's not absolutely requiredof him.'
But it has inspiredthe oppositionof nationalconservatives, including Pat Robertson, who referredto Williamsas 'PornographyPat.'
Then there is that resentment. [Chicago Tribune, 9/4/92; = Ward
& Birner 1995, exx. 8c, 14b]
Note that the relevant post-verbal NP is not only hearer-old,it is discourseold. Such examples are described by WB as ones in which hearer-oldentities
are neverthelessTREATEDAS hearer-new.In supportof this claim WB say 'there
are sufficient grounds for the speaker to believe that the entity has been (at
least momentarily)forgotten' (730).
Let us assume for the moment that this is the case. There would still be a
problemwith this analysis in that we are no longer dealingwith Prince's notion
of hearer-newness.Thatnotionwas supposedto distinguishentities the speaker
assumes are completely unknownto the addressee from those the speaker assumes the addressee to be acquaintedwith. In that view the obvious way to
treat an entity as hearer-newwould be to refer to it using an indefinite NP.
Indeed, one can treat a hearer-oldentity as hearer-newin this straightforward
sense, as when someone coyly says to their roommate,
(3) A certain person came by to see you this afternoon.
usingan indefiniteNP to referto an entity knownto be knownto the addressee.2
However that is not the case in these examples. On the contrary, we have
not only a definite NP, but a demonstrative(that resentment). As WB note,
this kind of demonstrativesignals that the entity 'is assumed to be part of the
interlocutors' private shared knowledge store, based on prior co-presence
(Clark& Marshall1981)'(731). That is, we have an explicit markingof hearerold status in the sense of Prince 1992.The concept of hearer-newnessemployed
here in the phrase 'treated as hearer-new' seems instead to concern what is
uppermostin the addressee's consciousness, which is clearly quite a different
idea from what is in the addressee's permanentmemory store.
2
This type of case is the inverseof whathas been called 'accommodation'(Heim 1983,following
Lewis 1979),where a speakertreats a hearer-newentity as hearer-old.
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DISCUSSION NOTE
105
I also want to challenge WB's claim that the NP referents in this type of
example must be assumed to have been forgotten even momentarily.In other
words, I doubt that the NP referents in this kind of example must be hearernew even in this remindersense of hearer-new.Althoughthis mightbe plausible
in the case of 2, there is a problem even in this case: there seems to be no
independentmeans of verification.The only concrete evidence we have is the
use of the existential sentence itself.
The use of the definitein conjunctionwith the there-constructionreflects the treatmentof the
referentas simultaneouslyhearer-newand uniquelyidentifiable.Indeed, it is precisely this
mixed markingthat leads the hearerto infer that the utteranceis a reminder-that is, that
despite the entity's apparentnewness to the hearer,it nonethelessconstitutes sharedknowledge. (Ward & Birner 1995:730-1)
But this type of evidence cannot be used prior to the establishment of the
correctnessof the hearer-newanalysis, and there are other examples for which
the claim of momentaryforgetting is less plausible than it is for 2. Two are
given in 4.
(4) a. I think there was one flight where we had one problem. It wasn't
ours, but there was that one flight. [Challenger commission tran-
scripts, 4/2/86; = Ward & Birner 1995, ex. 10]
b. The worst one that existed was 10 thousandthson the single 0ring on the Titan, and there are 20 of the five-segment. That was
the earliest version. There were four of the seven-segment, which
never went into production,but was just a development;and then
two five-and-a-halfsegments, which was a way of getting a little
additionalperformance.And I believe every one of them flying
now is the five-and-a-halfsegment device. And there is not any
evidence, but there was this 10 thousandths. [Challenger commission transcripts,2/10/86; = Ward& Birner 1995, ex. 6]
Note thatin 4b we have the proximaldemonstrativethis. Accordingto Gundel
et al. 1993(278-9), this use of this requiresnot only an assumptionof familiarity
to the addressee (which is both necessary and sufficient for that) but also an
assumptionof activationfor the referent,i.e. representationin short-termmemory. The only higherrankingcognitive status in the 'givenness hierarchy'proposed by Gundel et al. is the status of being 'in focus', that is, 'at the current
center of attention' (279). This suggests that, rather than saying these theresentences are being used to remind addressees of the existence of entities, a
better description of their function may be that they are intended to put an
entity into focus, in this sense of currentcenter of attention.
The other category of there-sentences with hearer-oldNPs cited by WB is
the type that have been called LIST EXISTENTIALS in the literature, following
Milsark 1974.
(5) A: What's on the office desk?
B: There's the telephone, but nothingelse. [= Ward& Birner 1995,
ex. 31b]
At least part of the WB analysis of this kind of sentence seems right on target-specifically, the idea that it requires a salient open proposition as background information.The problem lies in seeing the postverbal NP as hearer-
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LANGUAGE, VOLUME 73. NUMBER 1 (1997)
106
new. WB describe these as instances of 'hearer-oldentities newly instantiating
a variable', the variablein this example being the X of the open propositionX
is on the office desk. In other words, althoughthe entity in question is not new,
its 'membershipin the set being enumeratedis new to the hearer' (Ward &
Birner 1995:734).
At this point Prince's notion of hearer-newseems to have gotten lost altogether. Thatnotion had to do with acquaintancewith the existence of referents.
This notion has to do with given entities possessing properties.It is very hard
to makethis kindof example consistent with the claim that 'the there-construction is licensed by the hearer-newstatus of the referent' (Ward& Birner 1995:
729), or with the statementin the conclusion of their paperthat 'the postverbal
NP in a there-sentencemust represent an entity which is hearer-new(Prince
1992)'(740). There is no new entity referredto in 5.
One might argue that this is just a question of terminology, and that what
WB are getting at is a claim that the there-constructionsimply marks hearernewness, sometimes of a discourse entity and sometimes of the instantiation
of a variable.On the one handthis is problematicin the weakness of the notion
of hearer-newnessinvolved. This certainly could not be what is distinctive
about there-sentences,given the commonalityof new informationof this type
that sentences in general can express. On the other hand (and more crucially)
there are there-sentenceswhich appearnot to convey hearer-newnessof either
type, such as the examples above in 4 and the following list-type example.
(6) OK, lets finish up this guest list. There's you and me. Who else is
coming?
The third category of problematicexamples reinforces this conclusion. The
constructedexample in 7a, cited by WB, was intendedto call to mindnaturally
occurringexamples such as KC's utterancein 7b, and Cathy's utterancein the
last panel of 7c.
(7) a. A: Don't forget that Kim will be bringinga salad.
B: Oh right-there is that [= Abbott 1992, ex. 15; Ward &
Birner 1995, ex. 3a]
b. CT: It's just not somethingthe MidlandSymphonyis going to be
able to pull off.
KC: That's true-there is that. LOverheard
conversationexplaining the lack of recordingsof a concerto because of the difficulty of the orchestralparts (5/1/96)]
c.
CATHYBy Cathy Guisewite
SNA CRUt1Y ' HE HAS A ROOft1ATEI)rTHA
tLE. ULIVES
$75 WORTH AhOHAWK...
A CO RACKFULOf
PAPTRWmTWUTH
Of FURN(TUREAND A
GROUPSI NEVERHEARDO...
SOUND
AND
HE
HIANGS
...
AROUNDWUnH
IS,O000
SVSTEM
A eUCH Of DATLESS 80DY1 /
//
| BUILDERS (OITH
ERRT-TimE
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y--
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DISCUSSION NOTE
107
These examples are similarto the ones in 5 and 6 in the apparentnecessity of
a salient open proposition, although the variables here seem to range over
situations or factors rather than concrete objects such as people and office
machines. But crucially in these cases it is the ADDRESSEEof the there-sentence
who has put forwardthe instantiationof the variable.It thus seems impossible
either to argue that the referent of that in any of these sentences (i.e. the
situationor factor) is new to the addressee, or to argue that the fact that this
referent satisfies the salient open proposition is new information.3Note that
while the that in each case is in focus position it nevertheless undergoes anaphoricdestressing(forcingmain sentence stress to occur on is so that it cannot
be contracted).4A constituentcan be focussed in a sentence withoutbeing new
information.
There is a more fundamentalissue here, and that is the explanationfor any
constraintof the type proposed on postverbalNPs in there-sentences. Neither
Prince nor WB go into details about this issue. If one assumed that theresentences had a single function, and that that function was introducingnew
entities into the discourse, then such a constraintwould follow naturally.WB
do seem to makethis assumptionaboutthe functionof theresentences, although
they are not completely explicit. In their concludingremarksthey state that
WHILE MANY HAVE ATTEMPTED TO CAPTURE THE INTUITION THAT THERE-SENTENCES SERVE TO INTRODUCE A NEW REFERENT INTO THE DISCOURSE,
all have failed to adequatelycharacterizethe
discrepancy between the felicity conditions on there-sentences and those on definiteness.
(Ward & Birner 1995; 740, emphasis added.)
However the examples above show that there-sentences do not all have this
function. It may be a mistaketo thinkthat there-sentenceshave only one function of this type. Makingthe addressee aware of the existence (or absence) of
entities, introducingthem into the discourse, drawingthe addressee's attention
to their presence (or absence), or even simply acknowledgingthe existence of
certain entities, are all possible functions served by there-sentences. Thus it
may not be the case that any single discourse-basedprinciplecan account for
the distributionof NPs in this construction, but in any case certainly not a
principlerequiringthe postverbalNP to representan entity that is hearer-new.
REFERENCES
ABBOTT,
BARBARA.
1992. Definiteness, existentials, and the 'list' interpretation.Proceedings of SALT II, ed. by ChrisBarkerand David Dowty, 1-16. Columbus,OH:
Ohio State University.
3
A referee has suggested that these examples are echoic. While clearly the speaker is agreeing
with the addressee in these examples, some kind of independent evidence
would
be needed to
argue the echoicity in view of the fact that the utterance is of a different form from, and contains
which
it is supposed to be an echo of.
an4anaphoric reference to, the utterance
Is can be destressed and contracted if there is another constituent to bear main sentence stress,
as in ia below, or if the that receives contrastive stress, as in ib.
(i) a. EH: We could not have very much, and then order dessert.
JA: Hmmm... there's always that. [Overheard conversation, 6/1/96]
b. FS:
A lot of times interpreting what people are saying is a problem.
SS: There's that, but there's also the fact that the field is basically bullshit. [Overheard conversation, 5/31/96]
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108
LANGUAGE, VOLUME 73, NUMBER 1 (1997)
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BIRNER, BETTY, and GREGORYWARD. 1994. Uniqueness, familiarity, and the definite
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HEIM,IRENE.1983. On the projection problem for presuppositions. West Coast Conference on Formal Linguistics 2.114-25.
KUNO, SUSUMU. 1972. Functional sentence perspective: A case study from Japanese
and English. Linguistic Inquiry 3.269-320.
LEWIS,DAVID. 1979. Scorekeeping in a language game. Journal of Philosophical Logic
8.339-59.
MILSARK, GARY. 1974. Existential sentences in English. Cambridge, MA: MIT dissertation.
PRINCE,ELLENF. 1981. Towards a taxonomy of given-new information. Radical pragmatics, ed. by Peter Cole, 223-56. New York: Academic Press.
. 1992. The ZPG letter: Subjects, definiteness, and information-status. Discourse
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Sandra A. Thompson, 295-325. Amsterdam: John Benjamins.
WARD, GREGORY,and BETTYBIRNER.1995. Definiteness and the English existential.
Language 71.722-42.
Departmentof Linguisticsand
Germanic,Slavic, Asian, and
AfricanLanguages
MichiganState University
East Lansing,MI 48824-1027
[abbottb@pilot.msu.edu]
[Received 20 May 1996;
revision received 2 October 1996;
accepted4 October 1996.]
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