What is the relationship between the structure of existential sentences and their meaning? How do hearers interpret existential sentences using pragmatic assumptions? This study attempts to account for the relationship between the structure of existential sentences (ES) and their meaning. The study of ES has received a great deal of attention because the construction has complex syntactic properties, is associated with restrictions of a semantic nature, and provides an interesting area for investigation at a pragmatic level.
1. Syntax of ES
2. Opacity, Specificity, and ES
3. The Quantification
Effect
4. Further Aspects of the QE
5. ES and the Property Predication
Restriction
6. The Meaning of ES: Further Aspects
7. Conclusion
Michael Lumsden
