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Re: "There can be"

From:ROGER MILLS <rfmilly@...>
Date:Saturday, April 12, 2008, 4:30
Edwin Chen wrote:
>I chose a somewhat bad example, I think: yep indeed, the first 'there' >is usually just thought of as an 'empty' expletive/pleonastic pronoun, >not some sort of locative. > >However, skimming through the paper again, it looks like Freeze does >argue that 'there' is a locative.
Locative, but not deictic-- that would be the 2d "there ~here" in: 'there's a mouse _there/here_'. I suppose it could also be deictic (but with stress, different intonation) in "_There's_ a mouse" (pointing), and in this case I don't think you could have a second locational modifier-- *_There's_ a mouse on the cheese'. Thanks for sending the pdf, by the way. Very interesting albeit jargon-ridden :-(((( I was pleased to see him mention the relationship between "have" and "be"-- IIRC this was first discussed by Chas. Fillmore, which Freeze has in his biblio.

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Dirk Elzinga <dirk.elzinga@...>