EXISTENTIAL PROCESSES
Existential processes are processes of existing or happening. The basic structure consists of unstressed there + be + a NG (There’s a man at the door; there was a loud bang). There is not a participant as it has no semantic content, although it fulfils both a syntactic function as Subject and a textual function as ‘presentative’ element. The single participant is the Existent, which may refer to a countable entity (There’s a good film on at the Scala), an uncountable entity (There’s roast lamb for lunch) or an event (There was an explosion).
Semantically, existential processes state not simply the existence of something, but more usually expand the Existent in some way:
• by adding a quantitative measure and/or the location of the Existent:
I went for a walk in the woods. It was all right, there were lots of people there. [GUK]
There were all sorts of practical problems.
• with quantification and an Attribute characterizing the Existent:
There are some pages blank.
There were few people in favor.
• with quantification and expansion of the Existent by the addition of clauses:
There are few people who realize the danger.
There ’s nothing to be done about it.
The process in existential clauses is expressed by the following verbs:
• most typically by be;
• certain intransitive verbs expressing positional states (stand, lie, stretch, hang and remain);
• a few intransitive dynamic verbs of ‘occurring’, ‘coming into view’ or ‘arrival on the scene’ (occur, follow, appear, emerge, loom).
There remain many problems.
There followed a long interval.
There emerged from the cave a huge brown bear.
Existential there may be omitted when a locative or directional Adjunct is in initial position:
Below the castle (there) stretches a vast plain.
Out of the mist (there) loomed a strange shape.
Without ‘there’ such clauses are very close semantically to reversed circumstantial clauses. However, the addition of a tag question – with there, not a personal pronoun (Close to the beach stands a hotel, doesn’t there? *doesn’t it? ) – suggests that they are in fact existentials.
