Deal, Origin and Content of Expletives, 2009

The Origin and Content of Expletives: Evidence from “Selection”
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Deal, Amy Rose. 2009. The origin and content of expletives:

Citation Evidence from “selection”. Syntax 12(4): 285-323.
Published Version doi:10.1111/j.1467-9612.2009.00127.x
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The origin and content of expletives:
evidence from “selection”
Amy Rose Deal
Abstract. While expletive there has primarily been studied in the context of the existential
construction, it has long been known that some but not all lexical verbs are compatible
with there-insertion. This paper argues that there-insertion can be used to diagnose vPs
with no external argument, ruling out transitives, unergatives, and also inchoatives, which
are argued to project an event argument on the edge of vP. Based on the tight link between
there-insertion and low functional structure, I build a case for low there-insertion, where
the expletive is first merged in the specifier of a verbalizing head v. The low merge
position is motivated by a stringently local relation that holds between there and its
associate DP; this relation plays a crucial role in the interaction of there with raising verbs,
where local agreement rules out cases of “too many theres” such as *There seemed there to
be a man in the room. An account of these cases in terms of phase theory is explored,
ultimately suggesting that there must be merged in a non-thematic phasal specifier
position.
Keywords: there-insertion, inchoatives, economy, agreement, phase theory
1. Introduction
This paper is concerned with the English expletive there. The general subject of expletives
needs no introduction; expletive constructions in the world’s languages have motivated an
unusually rich and extensive literature throughout the history of generative syntax. 1 In the
course of this history, substantial advances have been made in understanding what sorts of
expletives are possible, and what expletives of particular types reveal about other features
* Thanks to Rajesh Bhatt, Kyle Johnson, Gary Milsark, audiences at the 2006 ECO5 workshop and 31st Penn
Linguistics Colloquium, and the anonymous reviewers for much helpful commentary. This material is based
upon work supported under a National Science Foundation Graduate Research Fellowship.
1
For (standard) English especially, see the reference list provided by Levin (1993: 88), as well as Lasnik
(1992, 1995), Williams (1994), Chomsky (1995, 2000, 2001), den Dikken (1995), Groat (1995), Rothstein
(1995), Runner (1995: §8.2), Basilico (1997), Moro (1997), Frampton and Gutmann (1999), Law (1999),
Richards (1999), Schütze (1999), Sabel (2000), Hale and Keyser (2000), Bobaljik (2002), Bošković (2002),
Bowers (2002), Hazout (2004), Kuno and Takami (2004: ch 2), Sobin (2004), Richards and Biberauer
(2005), Rezac (2006); on other languages and varieties of English see Thráinsson (1979), Platzack (1983),
Travis (1984: ch. 5), Burzio (1986), Maling (1988), Demuth (1990), Vikner (1995), Bobaljik and Jonas
(1996), Toribio (1996), Cardinaletti (1997), Moro (1997), Koster and Zwart (2000), Holmberg and Nikanne
(2002), Taraldsen (2002), Vangsnes (2002), Sells (2005), Henry and Cottell (2007), among many many
others.
1
The origin and content of expletives
of particular languages. The present work focuses on there, one expletive in one language,
in the hopes of contributing a detailed case study to the general question of expletive
typology in the framework of Principles and Parameters, presently instantiated as the
Minimalist Program (Chomsky 1995 et seq.).
In the course of this investigation, I examine two questions central to the analysis
of there. The first is the problem of ORIGIN: where does there come from? Where is there
base-generated, or externally Merged? The second question is the problem of CONTENT:
what is there made of? What features does it comprise? To probe these two crucial
mysteries, we will focus on a contrast which has been largely overlooked in the recent
literature on there-constructions: the apparent “selection” of there by various predicates, as
exemplified in (1) and (2) (verb lists excerpted from Levin 1993).
(1) a. There appeared a shadowy figure in the doorway.

b. There arrived a train in the station.
likewise: accumulate, coexist, emerge, hover, live, lurk, predominate, sit, swing
(2) a. *There laughed a man in the hallway.

b. *There melted a block of ice in the front yard.
c. *There slowed a train on the eastbound track.
likewise: abate, break, collect, detonate, divide, level, redden, solidify, vaporize
While this distinction between verb classes has been documented, e.g. in Levin’s work, it
has not been satisfactorily explained.2 I argue in the first part of this paper (sections 2-5)
that there-insertion does not target predicates at random. Rather, it systematically separates
out vPs with external arguments in their specifier position from those whose specifier
position may remain empty. I argue that this division concerns not only the distinction
between unergatives and unaccusatives, but also the distinction between “change of state”
unaccusatives and plain unaccusatives. I formalize the difference between the two classes
of unaccusatives in terms of the presence or absence of a CAUSE head, whose semantics
introduce a bi-eventive LF and whose syntax requires an event argument in Spec,vP. The
sensitivity of there-insertion to this argument-structural distinction provides compelling
evidence for a “low origin” account, where there is base-generated in the specifier of the
verbalizing head v.
In the second half of the paper (sections 6-8), I turn to the question of why there
should be inserted low, arguing that its low base position is motivated by very strong
locality restrictions that hold between there and its “associate” nominal (a shadowy figure
in (1a), a train in (1b)). This finding motivates a turn toward the problem of content; in
particular, the locality required to hold between there and its associate suggests an Agree
relation in terms of some feature(s) borne by there. The Agree relation is constrained by
phase boundaries (Chomsky 2000, 2001), such that there must originate on the edge of a
2
Previous discussions include Burzio’s (1986: §2.7.3), which singled out the class of unaccusatives
(ergatives in his terminology) as well as unergatives with heavy NP-shifted subjects; Freeze’s (1992), which
required a subcategorized locative argument; Haegeman’s (1991) and Hale and Keyser’s (2000), which
posited a link between there-insertion and causative alternations; and Kuno and Takami’s (2004), which
posits a functionally-based filter on there-insertion. On the Haegeman/Hale and Keyser theory see section 3.3
and footnote 21. See also Szabolcsi (1986) on Hungarian verbs showing a definiteness effect, and Maling
(1988) on related issues in Swedish.
2
Amy Rose Deal
phase in order to agree with a phase-internal associate. When the associate remains in its
base position inside vP, there must originate on the edge of the vP phase. Should the
associate move out of the vP phase, however, in particular due to (what has been termed)
heavy NP shift, there may originate higher in the structure than vP, provided it finds an
appropriate phase head in whose (non-thematic) specifier to lodge. A consideration of the
consequences of this final type of construction for the grammar of expletives concludes our
investigation.
2 The problem of origin
A long tradition in generative syntax has taken expletives to originate “upstairs”: the
subject position, daughter to S, or Spec,TP (e.g. Emonds 1970, Milsark 1974, Stowell
1978, Burzio 1986, among many others). Other subjects were repositioned downstairs into
VP (Koopman and Sportiche 1991, i.a.), then slightly up into a functional projection
VoiceP or vP (Kratzer 1996), but expletives stayed upstairs in Spec,TP.3 This “high origin”
account of expletives is continued in such work as Lasnik (1995) and Chomsky (1995,
2000, 2001), and remains the default assumption in Minimalist theory. In this section, I
briefly review the issues for a theory of high origin, before turning to a discussion of
factors constraining an alternative, low-origin account.
Chomsky’s (2000) analysis posits that there is freely Merged into Spec,TP in order
to fulfill the requirement that this head have a specifier (an EPP feature). There is a
nominal, but a deficient one; as a result of its deficiency, it does not participate in Case-
checking relations. Thus, whenever there is inserted in Spec,TP, the nominative Case
assigned by T (and accompanying agreement features) must target some other nominal in
the clause. Chomsky posits that this Case is assigned by the operation Agree to the
associate of there.
(3) TP
there T
T VP
arrive DP
AGREE a train
That the Agree relation must target some accessible nominal automatically rules out there
with argumentless weather verbs like rain, as well as with prepositional-object verbs.
(4) a. *There rained.

b. *There fell down the stairs.
3
Exceptions include Moro (1997) (and previous versions circulating much earlier), Hoekstra and Mulder
(1990), den Dikken (1995), Basilico (1997), Hale and Keyser (2000), Sabel (2000), Bowers (2002), Hazout
(2004), Nomura (2004), Richards and Biberauer (2005), Richards (2007).
3
However, it is not at all clear how the theory rules out cases which seem to differ from (3)
only with respect to the content of the V head, e.g. *There slowed a train (on the
eastbound track), (5).
(5) *TP
there T
T VP
slow DP
AGREE a train
In essence, two factors must fall into line for there-insertion to occur in Chomsky’s
(2000) framework. First, T must have an EPP feature which (prior to there-insertion) is
unchecked. Second, there must be a non-Case marked nominal within an appropriately
local domain in order for T to discharge its Case feature via Agree. Thus, so long as a verb
may combine with finite T and introduce a nominal which is not independently Case-
marked, there-insertion is predicted to be possible. Verbal semantics plays no role; the
functional heads in which verbs are (in some frameworks) encased play no role. In this
way, the high origin account comes to massively overgenerate there clauses, as
demonstrated by (5).4
It should be noted that these problems for the Chomsky (2000) theory are problems
specifically for the high origin aspect of the proposal. Importantly, the overgeneration of
cases like *There slowed a train does not in itself show that the operation Agree should be
discarded, or that Case should not be assigned to the associate. Rather, holding other
assumptions constant, the grammaticality of simple cases like (6) shows that Agreement
and Case-assignment must be possible in structures like (5).
(6) A train slowed (on the eastbound track).
Here, the Agree-based framework requires that T enters into a relationship with the DP a
train. As a result of this relationship, a train receives nominative Case. Furthermore, to
satisfy EPP on T, the Agree relation between T and a train forces the latter to move to
Spec,TP.
(7) [TP a train [ T [VP slow <a train> ] ] ]

AGREE
MOVEMENT DRIVEN BY [EPP]
4
The high origin account overgenerates even in cases where another Case-marker is available in the clause.
In such circumstances, we predict transitive expletive constructions to be possible:
(i) [TP There T [vP a man v [VP eat an apple] ] ]
Here two Case-assigners, T and v, are paired with two arguments, a man and an apple. See section 4 for a
low-origin explanation of the restrictions on transitive expletives in English; see also note 35.
4
Amy Rose Deal
In terms of Case-assignment and Agreement, this example is exactly the same as the
ungrammatical (5); only the problematic high expletive has been removed.
Turning away from the high origin proposal opens up the immediate question of
exactly where there is base-generated. An appealingly simple position would be that there
is selected for by particular V heads. However, there are several concerns raised by such an
approach. First, such selection would have to be always merely optional, except perhaps in
the case of the existential copula. Second is the issue of selecting an element which appears
to be devoid of intrinsic meaning, as noted by Lasnik (1995). The third problem comes not
from the apparent vacuity of there, but from the fact that it is an external argument,
structurally speaking (i.e., it occupies the same position as external arguments). A line of
research stemming from work by Marantz (1984) and Kratzer (1996) has suggested that
selection for external arguments is in general problematic, as such arguments do not seem
to be true arguments of the V head. A final problem is that some verbs allow there-
insertion contingent on the position of the associate:
(8) a. *Suddenly there walked a unicorn into the room.5 (Milsark 1974:246)
b. Suddenly there walked into the room a unicorn.
On a selection account, such facts would force the selectional properties of the verb to be
dependent on the surface syntactic position of its nominal argument, an unwelcome
complication. (We return to these contrasts in section 8.)
If there is not freely merged in Spec,TP, and not selected by particular V heads,
what controls its distribution? In the coming sections, I argue that it is the functional
structure surrounding verb roots which controls the insertion of there. In particular, in
standard cases, there can only be inserted on edge of a vP that lacks an external DP or
event argument (i.e., into a non-thematic vP specifier position).
3 There-insertion and the structure of causatives
Levin (1993) presents a listing of verb classes that do and don’t allow there-insertion.
Among the verbs that do take there, we have seen appear and arrive; among those that
don’t take there, we have seen laugh, melt and slow. What is it about these verbs that
determines their compatibility with there-insertion?
The literature widely acknowledges the incompatibility of there-insertion with
transitives as well as unergatives, verb classes known to require external arguments of vP.6
This leaves only unaccusatives; however, as melt and slow show, not all unaccusatives are
admissible with there-insertion. Rather, as Levin (1993) points out, only those
unaccusatives which do not denote a “change of state” may appear with there. Integrating
5
Examples of this type are marked as grammatical in Hoekstra and Mulder (1990) and Belvin and den
Dikken (1997). However, I have found no speaker who accepts them, and they are acknowledged to be
ungrammatical by Milsark (1974), Lumsden (1988: 39) and others.
6
There are exceptions to the ban on there-insertion with unergatives; see Burzio (1986: 162), Kuno and
Takami (2004: ch 2). There-sentences with unergative verbs are taken up below in the discussion of two
factors that can license them: the progressive (section 5) and outside verbals (section 8).
5
Levin’s generalization into the wider picture, we arrive at the generalization in (9),
equivalently stated as in (9’):
(9) There-insertion is incompatible with

a. transitives
b. unergatives (Burzio 1986, §2.7.3; Haegeman 1991)
c. “change of state” verbs (Levin 1993)
(9’) There-insertion is compatible only with unaccusatives that are not “change of state”
verbs
In order to formalize the generalization in (9’), a definition of the heretofore scare-

quoted category of change of state verbs will be required. It is clear that the most intuitive
classification will not be empirically adequate. On the one hand we find predicates like
disappear, which do not seem to denote changes of state, and yet reject there-insertion;7 on
the other we encounter verbs like bloom, which seem to fall into the change-of-state
category and yet can allow there-insertion. Turning to formal properties, we learn from
Jackendoff (1996), Hay, Kennedy and Levin (1999), Levin & Rappaport Hovav (2002) and
others that the change of state class does not coincide with an aspectual category (e.g.
achievements; cf. Dowty 1979). What then could be the defining property of the change of
state verbs, the unaccusatives that do not allow there?
I argue that Levin’s change of state verbs are those whose intransitive form occurs
in vP with a causative head CAUSE. In accordance with (9’), verbal structures which
contain this head do not support there-insertion. The causative hypothesis may be
formulated as follows:
(10) Causative hypothesis. The vP of an unaccusative verbal root may contain expletive
there just in case it does not contain CAUSE.
The proper representation of change-of-state, inchoative or anticausative

intransitive verbs has been the subject of a long debate in the literature to which I cannot
do real justice here (see for instance Dowty 1979, Levin and Rappaport Hovav 1995,
Pesetsky 1995, Wunderlich 1997, Piñón 2001, Reinhart 2002, Alexiadou and
Anagnostopoulou 2004, Alexiadou et al. 2005, 2006, Kallulli 2006, Koontz-Garboden
2007). Nonetheless, certain aspects of the problem of there-insertion and the change-of-
7
This is not to deny that there are ever grammatical there-sentences with disappear; however, these are
outside verbals, where the associate has left its base position:
(i) Sometime during this last pluvial there disappeared from Africa the last manlike rivals of man as we
know him. (http://oneworldmagazine.org/focus/etiopia/lost1.html)
(ii) There disappeared from the safe two diamond rings that her ex-husband had given her (Kuno and
Takami 2004: 55)
Outside verbals do not obey the definiteness restriction (Milsark 1974), and so the absence of definiteness
effects in (iii), from Lumsden (1988: 237), may suggest that this case is an outside verbal, too (with the final
PP extraposed from VP). See section 8 for an analysis.
(iii) One by one during the day the vessels left until finally there disappeared our own ship over the
horizon.
6
Amy Rose Deal
state generalization (9’) shed light on some of the issues at stake, supporting the
formalization at play in (10).
First, generalization (9’) requires us to find some way to distinguish change-of-
state unaccusatives from other unaccusatives. We cannot adopt any analysis according to
which change-of-state verbs are formally identical to other unaccusatives (e.g. arrive,
hang). The problem of there-insertion also places a requirement on how the differences
among unaccusatives are to be encoded in the grammar. I take it that there-insertion is as
good an example as any of a phenomenon that occurs in the syntax, not the lexicon;
therefore, in order to allow generalizations about there-insertion to be stated in a way that
avoids reference in the syntax to the internal structure of lexical items (i.e. preserving
lexical integrity), we set aside views that posit a difference between change-of-state
unaccusatives and unaccusatives like arrive and hang only in the lexicon or in “event
structure” (e.g. Levin and Rappaport Hovav 1995, Wunderlich 1997, Koontz-Garboden
2007). Finally, my proposal can be contrasted with work that posits an operator in the
syntax for change of state intransitives, but identifies this head not as CAUSE but as
BECOME (e.g. Alexiadou and Anagnostopoulou 2004). The reasons for this will become
clear as we discuss the diagnostics for causal semantics in intransitive verbs, which rely on
a bi-eventive structure that is contributed by CAUSE but not by BECOME.8
As argued below, the motivations for CAUSE as an element of vP projection are
unrelated to there-insertion, and thus the correlation between there-insertion and the
diagnostics for CAUSE is particularly striking. On the proposal adopted here, what appears
to be a lexical semantic distinction among verbs can be reduced to a syntactic distinction
between different types of structures in which verbal roots can occur. It is this structural
distinction to which there-insertion is sensitive.
The semantics of the CAUSE head can be given as follows, following Pylkkänen
(2002), Kratzer (2005) (where s is the type of eventualities and t the type of propositions):
(11) CAUSE: λP<s,t> λe ∃e′ . P(e′) & direct-cause(e)(e′)
Two aspects of this denotation are worth noting. First, the CAUSE head does not introduce
a causer argument (an entity); rather, it introduces only a causing event.9 I will argue that
the causing event is syntactically represented as an external argument of vP
(correspondingly proposing a slight modification to (11)). Secondly, the relation of
causation involved in the CAUSE head is crucially one of direct causation; the causal
chain between the two events is constrained to rule out intervening causes (Kratzer
8
A bi-eventive BECOME operator is considered (but not adopted) by Parsons (1990: 119), and proposed by
Piñón (2001). For Parsons the second event in addition to the resultant state is the change of state itself,
whereas for Piñón this second event e is that which “an object x comes to be in a state … by virtue of.”
Piñón’s bi-eventive inchoative operator seems to me compatible with an analysis in terms of causation
between the result state and e.
9
This conception of causation as relating pairs of events follows Parsons (1990), Piñón (2001), Pylkkänen
(2002) and Kratzer (2005), and is “the standard view” among philosophers according to Schaffer (2007). It
can be contrasted with views of causation that take it to be a relation between entities (individuals) and
events (at least in cases where the subject is not overtly event-denoting), such as those advanced by
Jackendoff (1976, 1983) and Wunderlich (1997), as well as with views that take causation to be a relation
between events but include with the CAUSE head a necessary place for a causer argument, as in Levin and
Rappaport Hovav (1995) and Pylkkänen (2002), the former generally and the latter only for English.
7
2005).10 In virtue of the directness of the causation, the CAUSE head in effect subsumes
the effect sometimes attributed to a BECOME operator in inchoatives (e.g. by Dowty 1979
and works following), viz the change of state. A state that already holds (or an event that is
already ongoing) cannot be caused; if snow is already in a melted state, for instance, one
cannot cause it to melt.11 Thus, given that the CAUSE head introduces an event s' that is
the direct cause of the state/event s denoted by the verb root, it necessarily refers to the
beginning of s and to the theme of s entering into s. This is the change of state meaning.
The following sections outline evidence from prepositional modifiers,
eventive/stative contrasts and causative alternations in support of the Causative Hypothesis
(10). In each case, those structures passing tests for the bi-eventive structure of the CAUSE
head disallow there-insertion, while structures with there-insertion fail tests for the
CAUSE head.
3.1 Prepositional modifiers
For the reasons outlined above, I take the hallmark of change-of-state verbs to be the
inclusion of CAUSE in the verbal projection.12 Because CAUSE contributes causative
meaning by introducing a causing event, causative structures are bi-eventive. A major
source of evidence for the presence of a bi-eventive structure in certain intransitive vPs
comes from PP modifiers which, in a number of languages, can specify the causing event.
In English, German and Greek, for example, the causing event of inchoatives can be
referenced by by itself or by a PP headed by a preposition like from (Chierchia 1989,
DeLancey 1984, Levin and Rappaport Hovav 1995, Alexiadou et al. 2005, 2006):13
(12)a. The window cracked from the pressure

b. The window cracked by itself (without outside help)
(13)a. Die Vase zerbrach durch ein Erdbeben German; Alexiadou et al. 2005
The vase broke through an earthquake.
10
Alternative conceptions of direct causation are presented by Dowty (1979: 98), Lewis (1986: 184-188) and
by Wunderlich (1997: 37). Of these, only Lewis’ analysis is compatible with the view that causation holds
between events, not individuals and events.
11
It has been noted that inchoatives may be used in certain cases where the state does hold previously to any
change; an object may redden even if it is already red. This is a problem for a strict Dowty-style treatment of
BECOME (cf. Dowty 1979: 140), which allows BECOME p to be true at an interval I just in case p is not
true at an interval J containing the initial bound of I. Dispensing with BECOME in favor of mere causation
may save us some trouble here. If a particular eventuality e is caused by another event e’, e could not have
held prior to e’, though what exactly was the case prior to e’ is left open. Just because we are describing e as
a state of redness, for instance, we need not conclude that e followed a state devoid of redness.
12
I do not assume any necessary connection between inchoativity and participation in the causative
alternation; see section 3.3.
13
There are well-known restrictions on the causal readings of from-PPs, most notably that they must name a
causing event, not an agent or instrument (Alexiadou et al. 2005, 2006, Kallulli 2006). This translates into an
animacy restriction, since events are never animate. It appears that there are other restrictions on causal from
as well; while verbs like crack or break accept it, verbs like disappear do not, despite the independent
evidence for a causal analysis of disappear (see below). The precise constraints on causal from call for
further research. What appears clear at present is that structures allowing causal from pass other tests for
CAUSE, such as the by itself test; thus, causal readings of from imply the presence of CAUSE, although the
lack of such readings does not imply the absence of CAUSE.
8
Amy Rose Deal
b. Die Vase zerbrach von selbst

The vase broke by itself
(14)a. I porta espase apo to apotomo klisimo Greek; Alexiadou et al. 2005
The door broke by the abrupt closing
b. I porta anikse apo moni tis
The door opened by alone-SG hers
‘The door opened by itself’
Of particular importance is the contrast with non-inchoative unaccusatives (i.e.

unaccusatives without CAUSE) like arrive, a verb which readily allows there-insertion.
When modifying arrive, by itself means only ‘alone’ and not ‘without outside help’; a
from-PP, likewise, may only specify a source and not a cause.
(15) The student arrived early by herself

✓ No one else arrived early. (‘alone’ reading)
* Nothing caused the early arrival. (‘without outside help’ reading)
(16) The plane arrived from Tokyo/*from the tailwind.
The modificational facts support the view that inchoative vPs introduce a causing event
which non-inchoative unaccusative vPs are devoid of.14 The postulation of a CAUSE head
allows us to capture this bi-eventive structure in a compositional way.
The contrast between inchoatives like open or melt and non-inchoative unaccu-
satives like arrive correlates as predicted with the possibility of there-insertion: inchoative
vPs cannot take there, whereas non-inchoatives may. Rephrasing in terms of our CAUSE
diagnostics, whenever by itself or from can refer to the causing event, there-insertion is
unavailable. Some examples are given in (17) below for inchoatives and in (15-16) above
and (18) below for non-inchoative unaccusatives.
(17) Inchoatives; *there-insertion

a. melt
i. The ice cream melted by itself
✓ alone reading
✓ without outside help reading
ii. The ice cream melted from the heat (cause)
iii. *There melted some ice cream in the heat
b. disappear
i. The wizard disappeared by himself15
14
The alternative to this view is to claim that by itself and from-PPs themselves introduce the causing event.
There are two negative consequences of such a view. The first is that we must stipulate that causation-
introducing modifiers cannot combine with certain verbs, e.g. arrive (though periphrastic expressions of
causation with due to or because of are possible, showing the issue is not merely due to encyclopedic
information about arrival). This makes it mysterious why only such verbs can take there. The second is that
we must postulate two unrelated mechanisms for introducing causation: one for transitive clauses like The
pressure cracked the window, and another for intransitives with PPs like The window cracked from the
pressure (see Solstad 2006 for German durch).
9
✓ alone reading
✓ without outside help reading
ii. The wizard disappeared from fear (cause)
iii. *There disappeared a thief into the night
(18) Non-inchoative; there-insertion: hang

i. The portrait hung on the wall by itself
✓ alone reading
* without outside help reading
ii. The portrait hung from the thumbtack/*the stapling (source, *cause)16
iii. There hung a portrait on the wall
We see in these examples the negative correlation between there-insertion and causative
semantics for an unaccusative verb.
3.2 Eventive/stative contrasts
Certain verbs, for instance grow and bloom, show both stative and change-of-state
behavior. Thus a sentence like The rosebush bloomed can mean either that the plant was in
a floral state, or that it entered that state. The Causative Hypothesis (10) allows us to
capture this contrast in virtue of its reference to structure, not the lexical content of a verb
(word).
Milsark (1974: 250) noted that verbs like grow have two readings, only one of
which is compatible with there-insertion.17 On their stative readings, such verbs allow
there-insertion, but their eventive readings are not possible with there.18 19
(19)a. There grew some corn in our garden last year. [stative; ✓there]
b. *There grew some corn very slowly in Massachusetts. [eventive; *there]
15
A reviewer suggests that the ‘without outside help’ reading of by itself, found with disappear, may extend
to appear, a verb that allows there-insertion, for instance in the following context:
(i) Even though my grandmother used a walker, she still appeared at the police station by herself.
I find all by herself necessary to obtain this reading, a modification that may bear on the by itself diagnostic
and is not necessary with disappear in (17b).
16
The missing causative reading of the from-phrase can be found in The portrait hung due to/because of the
stapling.
17
He also notes verbs like follow, which like bloom and grow vary in allowing there-insertion, but unlike
them lack change-of-state readings:
(i) a. A rainstorm followed. b. There followed a rainstorm.
(ii) a. A taxicab followed slowly. b. *There followed a taxicab slowly.
Following Burzio (1986: 160) and Lumsden (1988: 37-38), I analyze this alternation in terms of
unaccusativity: follow is unaccusative in (i) and unergative in (ii). (Hide may be analyzed similarly.)
Accordingly, translations of the two follows use different auxiliaries in Italian, and agentive nominal follower
is appropriate for a taxicab but not a rainstorm.
18
(19a) is from Milsark (1974: 250, ex 14), and (19b) is based on Milsark (250, ex 11a).
19
Levin and Rappaport Hovav (1995: 161) suggest on the basis of evidence from Dutch that non-change of
state bloom is unergative. (20a) suggests that the Dutch analysis is not applicable; English stative bloom is
indeed unaccusative, just like change-of-state bloom. They differ in the presence of a CAUSE head.
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(20)a. There bloomed a rosebush on the patio. [stative; ✓there]

b. *There bloomed a rosebush very slowly on the patio. [eventive; *there]
On the approach pursued here, we can make sense of this pattern in terms of the semantic
contributions of verb root and CAUSE head. The verb root √BLOOM denotes a stative
eventuality, viz the state of having flowers. If a CAUSE head is added, the resulting vP has
an eventive, change of state meaning. In accordance with the causative hypothesis, there-
insertion is not sensitive to verb roots themselves; it is sensitive to the structures projected
around them.20 For this reason we should not assume that a particular (unaccusative) verb
will always permit/bar there-insertion, unless it consistently forbids/requires a CAUSE
head. If the root √BLOOM can be used in the structure of the “pure unaccusative”, i.e.
without CAUSE, there-insertion should be possible. It is also in this configuration that we
predict the stative semantics of the root to remain visible. There is no CAUSE head to
introduce an eventive eventuality, just as there is no CAUSE head to interfere with there-
insertion. The major difference between intransitive bloom and an intransitive like hang
seems to be that while both can appear in the pure unaccusative structure, wherein they
remain stative and allow there-insertion, only bloom additionally allows the inchoative
structure wherein CAUSE brings in both eventivity and a ban on there-insertion.
3.3 Causative alternations
On top of the evidence from causative-modifying by itself and from-PPs and eventive-
stative contrasts, causative alternations present confirming data in support of the Causative
Hypothesis (10): in large part, verbs which participate in causative alternations cannot
undergo there-insertion.21
It is widely agreed that a causative transitive verb is one which contains both an
agent and an encoding of causation, e.g. breakTR or hangTR but not greet (agentive, but not
causative) or hear (neither agentive nor causative). What is less widely agreed upon is the
syntactic and semantic status of the intransitive forms of verbs like break and hang. The
empirical sources of this disagreement become clear upon application of the CAUSE
diagnostics given above to the set of intransitive verbs that have causative “alternants”.
There is no unified class of anticausative verbs as defined by the causative alternation.
Participation in the causative alternation is not entirely predictable from the structure of an
intransitive form. Verbs like hang or develop are non-inchoative (i.e. lack CAUSE) in their
intransitive form but have a causative alternant (i.e. a form with CAUSE and the agent-
introducing head Voice), whereas fall is inchoative in its intransitive form but does not
20
Cf Hoekstra and Mulder (1990: §3.2), who posit that “unergative verbs” can undergo there-insertion just in
case their syntax is actually unaccusative.
21
A similar generalization is expressed by Haegeman (1991: 307-312) and Hale and Keyser (2000): there-
insertion verbs cannot transitivize, in contrast to what Hale and Keyser call ‘pure’ unaccusatives and what
Haegeman calls ergatives (in contrast to unaccusatives). Related analyses can be found in Levin and
Rappaport Hovav (1995: ch 3). Incidentally, exactly the opposite generalization is proposed by Burzio (1986:
161) on the basis of unaccusatives like assemble, circulate and roll that allow there-insertion and have a
transitive form; verbs like start are put aside (fn. 74). This kind of disagreement about the proper role of
causative alternations in the analysis of there-insertion is to be expected so long as alternations remain the
primary source of evidence for the presence of CAUSE in an intransitive form.
11
alternate. This difference between hang and fall, by comparison to alternating inchoatives
like break, is reflected in the possible structures for each verb root:22
(21) intransitive structure(s) transitive structure

break [ CAUSE [√BREAK DP ]] [DP [Voice [ CAUSE [√BREAK DP ]]]]
fall [ CAUSE [√FALL DP ]] --
hang [v [√HANG DP]] [ DP [ Voice [ CAUSE [√HANG DP ]]]]
grow [ CAUSE [√GROW DP ]]
[ DP [ Voice [ CAUSE [√GROW DP ]]]]
[v [√GROW DP]]
We see in such data that so-called “causative-inchoative” alternations are in fact better
labeled causative-unaccusative alternations, where the unaccusative form may be
inchoative (break), non-inchoative (hang), or exist in both forms (grow). Given that the
possibility of a transitive causative form does not strictly indicate the presence of a
corresponding intransitive form with CAUSE, data from alternations should best be
viewed only as a confirmation of the evidence from modifiers in determining which
intransitive vPs contain CAUSE heads.
Keeping this variation in mind, we nonetheless find a pattern of some interest in the
long-contested case of the verb disappear, which disallows there-insertion. We have seen
above that evidence from modifiers supports an inchoative analysis of this verb; it appears
that at least marginally, a causative alternant is also attested, (22a).23 By contrast, the
morphologically related appear allows there-insertion and absolutely cannot be
causativized, (22b).
(22)a. ?The magician disappeared a rabbit.

b. *The magician appeared a rabbit.
Here data from causative alternations dovetail with data from causation-modifiers and
eventive-stative contrasts, as evidence converges on the Causative Hypothesis (10).
4 Contexts for there-insertion
We now have in hand a generalization about the verbs that do and don’t take expletive
there. In this section, I develop an account of there-insertion that aims to explain the
pattern we have seen in terms of there-insertion in non-thematic specifiers of vP. If an
argument (nominal or eventive) must be projected in Spec,vP, there cannot be inserted;
otherwise it is inserted freely into this position.
Following work by Marantz (1997) and others, I assume that verbal projections
contain vPs whose heads are drawn from a closed class of “verbalizers”, one member of
22
I assume that paradigm gaps like the absence of transitive fall are encoded morphologically; see Harley
and Noyer (2000). The underlying motivations for this morphological encoding may be related to conceptual
issues of internal and external causation, as discussed by Levin and Rappaport Hovav (1995).
23
The Oxford English Dictionary dates transitive disappear to 1897, providing the following attestation:
(i) We progressively disappear the faces of the dodecahedron. (Chem. News 19 Mar. 143)
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which is Kratzer’s (1996) agent-introducing Voice head, (24). Unergative and transitive
verbs occur in structures as follows: 24
(23)a. Unergative b. Transitive

vP vP
DP v DP v
Voicev √ Voicev √P
√ DP
(24) Voicev: λxλe. Agent(x)(e)
In both of these structures, the v head requires an argument in its specifier position; there
cannot be inserted (see also Bowers 2002: 195). Turning to unaccusatives, CAUSE as well
may be considered a verbalizer;25 when CAUSE is not present in an unaccusative, a default
verbalizer head v~ is used. This gives us the structures in (25) for inchoative and “pure”
unaccusatives (e.g. fall and arrive respectively):
(25) a. Inchoative b. Non-inchoative unaccusative

vP vP
CAUSEv √P v~ √P
√ DP √ DP
These four structures provide the distinctions crucial for the formalization of low
there-insertion. In each case, if a verbalizing head requires an argument in its specifier
position, there cannot be inserted. For structures containing Voice, the need for an
argument is already encoded by the semantics in (24). We revise the denotation considered
for CAUSE in (11) above to encode that with CAUSE as well as with Voice, an external
argument in Spec,vP is required: in this case, the causing event. (26) gives the revised
denotation for CAUSE, and (26b) exemplifies the proposed structure.26
(26) a. λPλe′λe . P(e) & direct-cause(e′)(e)
24
Unergative structure (23a) contains an agentive Voice head, as defined in (24), and thus represents only
agentive intransitives. A similar structure is proposed for intransitives with external arguments receiving
theta-roles other than agent (e.g. for cough, sleep), making appropriate changes to the argument-introducing v
head. Transitive structure (23b) does not contain CAUSE and thus represents only non-causative transitives,
e.g. meet, kiss. Causative transitives such as break, kill and open are represented as [VoiceP Voice [CauseP
CAUSE √P], as in (21) (Alexiadou et al. 2005, 2006, Harley 2007). In both types of transitives, the argument
of Voice (the agent) must appear in the thematic vP specifier position.
25
See Koontz-Garboden (2005, 2007) on the link between change-of-state semantics and verbhood.
26
Alternatively, we could retain the semantics for CAUSE given in (11) and place an event pronoun in the
Spec,vP position if we could assume that the event pronoun would immediately be bound by lambda
abstraction.
13
b. Severing the causing event from its CAUSE head

λe . broken(the window)(e) & direct-cause(s)(e)
s λe′λe . broken(the window)(e) & direct-cause(e′)(e)

causing event
CAUSEv λe . broken(the window)(e)
√BREAK the window
The reason why inchoative vPs cannot host there-insertion is then the same as the reason
why agentive vPs cannot do so: for semantic reasons, the specifier of the verbalizer cannot
remain empty.
For the final verbalizer, v~, no such considerations apply. Since the verbalizing
head fails to introduce an argument of either an eventive or an entity type, its specifier is
non-thematic, and entirely free to accommodate there. It is thus through a process of
interpretive elimination that there-insertion comes to be possible only in the specifier of
non-inchoative unaccusatives.
5 The special status of there be
The discussion to this point has focused entirely on there-insertion independent of the
copula -- so-called “presentational there” (Milsark 1974, Aissen 1975, Burzio 1986, Ward
and Birner 1996, i.a.).27 Nevertheless, the framework laid out in the previous section gives
us the tools necessary to account for why the copula in its many forms is invariably
capable of bringing in there-insertion -- in passives (27), progressives (28),28 and
existentials (29).
(27)a. There were several people arrested over the weekend.

b. There are thousands of healthy animals euthanized every day.
(28)a. There was a child loudly singing in the campground.

b. There are fans gathering outside the stadium.
(29)a. There will be a unicorn in the garden at 8 pm.
27
This term is also sometimes used to describe cases of there-insertion with lexical verbs and V-PP-NP
order, Milsark’s outside verbals (Safir 1982:211, Schütze 1999). On V-PP-nominal order, see section 8.
28
Word order data indicates that examples like (27) and (28) are not fully accounted for under an alternative,
reduced relative analysis. Reduced relatives must precede full relatives, as shown in (i); but as (ii) shows, no
such restriction appears in the there + progressive case. (Thanks to Rajesh Bhatt for bringing these data to my
attention.)
(i) a. The teacher scolded [the student laughing in the hall who was wearing a Red Sox cap]
b. *The teacher scolded [the student who was wearing a Red Sox cap laughing in the hall]
(ii) a. There is a man laughing in the hall who’s wearing a Red Sox cap.
b. There is a man who’s wearing a Red Sox cap laughing in the hall.
See Rezac (2006: 686, 692) for a summary of evidence that passive and progressive expletive constructions
cannot be analyzed only as reduced relatives, pace Law (1999) and other work.
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b. There is a problem with the coffeemaker.
To account for these cases, we might view the copula (in its many forms) as comprised of
the dummy verbalizer v~, embedding functional structure such as an Asp(ectual)P or a
small clause. The presence of the dummy verbalizer in the progressive accounts for the
contrast in (30): laugh cannot permit there-insertion, but be can. Insertion of there targets
the specifier of v~, though this need not be the only verbalizer in the overall structure.
(30)a. *There laughed a child in the hallway.

b. There is a child laughing in the hallway.
(31) A structure for (30b), There is a child laughing.

vP
there v
v~ AspP
“BE”
Aspprog vP
DP v
a child Voicev √laugh
The same functional structure for the copula gives us existential sentences like (29). Here
only one verbalizer is present, with its complement a small clause or a nominal; this sole
verbalizer permits insertion of there.
6 Agreement and the content of there
Thus far I have argued for a low-generation solution to the problem of origin. This account
makes sense of the distribution of there in terms of the heads that verbalize roots and
structures of various sorts; only when a “pure” verbalizer is found in a syntactic structure
will there-insertion be possible. The essence of this account is that there can be freely
inserted in non-thematic Spec,vP positions. We turn now to the question of why it is
Spec,vP in particular that is targeted by there. It is this question which provides our segue
to the problem of content.
Up to this point we have treated there as an element essentially visible only to the
EPP feature of T. Presumably this means assigning it only what Chomsky (1995) has
called a “D feature”. In this section, I motivate a revision of the assumption that there is
merely a D feature;29 on top of the D feature, it must contain uninterpretable features which
are checked against its associate. The checking relation with the associate must be
29
Or merely a number feature, as in Chomsky (1981), or merely a case feature, as in Travis (1984), or merely
a person feature, as in Chomsky (2000: 125; 2001), etc.
15
maximally local, and it is in order to satisfy this stringent locality that there can only be
born in the specifier of a low phase head, Spec,vP.30
6.1 Too many theres
Empirical motivation for an agreement relation between there and its associate comes from
what I call the “too many theres” problem, references to which are scattered through the
literature. Examples like (32), with multiple instances of there, are sharply ungrammatical:
(32)a. *There seemed there to be a man in the room.

b. *There seemed there to arrive a train in the station.
These examples are a problem for Chomsky’s (2000) high-generation-of-there account,

which predicts free Merger of there in each Spec,TP. They are just as much of a problem
on the low origin account outlined above, which at present predicts the possibility of
merger in Spec,vP of seem as well as in Spec,vP of be or arrive.
(33) The too-many-theres problem

* TP
there1 vP
there1 v
v~ √P
√seem TP
there2 T
to vP
there2 v
v~ √P
√appear DP
30
If low origin is tightly linked to an agreement relationship with an associate, we might expect languages
whose expletives are not generated low not to require any such relationship with a nominal. Icelandic það
provides initial support for this hypothesis. Platzack (1983) and Maling (1988) have argued that expletives in
Icelandic always occupy Spec,CP. In contrast to a low expletive like there, það is acceptable even with
argument-less weather verbs, suggesting that no relationship with a DP is required.
(i) það rignir
EXPL rains
The function of það-insertion in Spec,CP may be to preserve V2 order (Haiman 1974, Breckenridge 1975,
but cf. Sells 2005 and references there); agreement with an associate does not seem to be necessary.
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a train in the station
The low origin account introduces a further puzzle of this type. Above, we saw that both
unaccusatives and the progressive copula contain the v~ verbalizer in whose specifier there
may originate. However, we cannot insert there in both Spec,vP positions, (34).
(34) *There is there arriving a train in the station.
The too-many-theres problem shows that free generation of there in any syntactic position
(Spec,TP or Spec,vP) must be constrained. Such examples will pose a problem for any
theory on which (a) there does not get Case, or (b) there does not enjoy a close relationship
with its associate.
While the literature provides ample precedent for the claim that there is Case-
marked (with or without the help of the associate; see Chomsky 1986b, Hoekstra and
Mulder 1990, Lasnik 1992, 1995, Groat 1995, Hazout 2004; cf. Cardinaletti 1997), let us
explore instead the mileage we can get from abandoning the claim that there bears no
relation to its apparent associate. The empirically sound generalization is that there-clauses
of all stripes require a DP associate. The too-many-theres problem shows that a close
relationship between there and verbs and their argument heads does not yield this for free.
Let us then supplement the theory of there with the proposal in (35).31
(35) Content
There has uninterpretable features which it checks against its associate.
This is implemented as a local Agree relationship.
The account explored here is couched in the phase-based theory of locality (Chomsky
2000, 2001). In this framework, certain heads are designated as “phase heads”; when one
of these phase heads is merged with its sister, the sister becomes impenetrable to further
operations (i.e. is “spelled out”). Only the phase head and its specifier remain visible, the
latter serving as an “escape hatch” for material which would otherwise be petrified inside
the completed lower phase (see Chomsky 2000, 2001). (In what follows I show phase
boundaries as falling between the specifier position and the phase head; for our purposes
here they could equally well be drawn between the phase head and its sister, demarcating
“spell out domains”.) This framework thus derives two of the crucial properties of
syntactic operations: locality and cyclicity.
A point of long-standing interest in generative work has been the exact definition of
locality domains, which phases presently instantiate.32 Chomsky (2000) argued that the
only phases are C and the head v (here Voice) found in transitive argument-structure
31
This proposal has empirical advantages over an alternative “big DP” account, according to which there and
its associate originate within a single DP constituent from which there is subsequently extracted (Basilico
1997, Sabel 2000). While a big DP proposal can presumably account for the one-to-one relationship between
theres and associates (assuming we can rule out “supersize DPs” containing a nominal and more than one
there), it predicts that there should be compatible with all sorts of vP structures, contrary to fact.
32
See Boeckx and Grohmann (2007) for a catalogue of similarities between phases and their predecessors in
the Barriers model of Chomsky (1986a). The reader is invited to insert an alternative term for locality
domains in the place of phase in the text. What will be crucial is that both movement and agreement relations
must respect such domains.
17
projections. However, work by Legate (2002) has suggested that all v heads, including
those found with passive and unaccusative verbs, pass diagnostics for phase-hood; in
particular, they seem to provide intermediate landing sites for successive cyclic movement.
We will see shortly that there-insertion provides further evidence for the existence of
locality domains defined over all vPs, including those projected around unaccusatives.
To see this, let us first consider the case of (34), *There is there arriving a train in
the station. We predict that there can be generated in the projection of the progressive
copula, as well as in the projection of the unaccusative verb. Since there is permitted with
an unaccusative independently of the progressive higher up, in a bottom-up syntactic
model we cannot block the unaccusative v~ from allowing there in this instance. Supposing
that unaccusatives project impenetrable vP domains, let us suppose in addition that there
must obey strict locality constraints in its agreement relation with its associate. In
particular, the agreement relation is possible from the specifier of a phase-head into the
sister of the phase-head, but it is not possible otherwise across phase boundaries. Then
only the lower there in (36), which is generated in the specifier of the unaccusative v, will
be sufficiently close to the associate to enter into an Agree relationship. The higher there,
generated in the specifier of the progressive copula, will be too far away.33
(36) Unaccusative: higher there is too far from associate
vP
PHASE
there v
[uF]
v~ AspP
“BE”
Aspprog vP
there v
[uF]
v~ √P PHASE
√P PP
√arrive DP in the station
!! AGREE fails a train

across phase edge [F]
AGREE
Thus, as a consequence of the structure of unaccusatives, there in There is a train arriving

originates in the Spec,vP of arrive and not in the Spec,vP of the progressive be.
33
Note that tree (36) shows only the standard head-initial treatment of the English verbal projection;
something more must be said to derive the final DP-Participle order in progressives like There is a train
arriving or passives like There were four people arrested. Recent work on this topic has adopted the label
Th/Ex for this word order pattern (and its crucial pre-participle NP position), following Chomsky (2001).
See Caponigro and Schütze (2003), Rezac (2006).
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How, then, does the progressive allow there with unergative verbs? Given that the
argument of an unergative is already projected in the specifier of the verbalizer Voicev, a
locality problem does not ensue when there begins in the specifier of the higher v head.
Structure (37) exemplifies for There is a man laughing:
(37) Unergative: Agree is still local

vP
there v
[uF]
v~ AspP
“BE”
Aspprog vP
a man v
[F]
AGREE licit: Voicev √laugh
Assoc’s [F] outside lower phase
As (37) shows, the locality account allows us to generate there in the specifier of the
progressive copula with unergative verbs while avoiding the too-many-theres problem
with progressive unaccusatives.34
The second (and more famous) too-many-theres problem concerns raising verbs:
(38) *There seemed there to arrive a train in the station. (from 32b)
The locality account predicts that the trouble here stems from the higher there being too far
away from the associate. There is indeed evidence that there in raising constructions must
be generated downstairs: only when the embedded verb allows there, as in (39c,d), may
there appear as subject of seem.35
(39)a. *There seemed to disappear a dagger from the armory.

b. *There seemed to melt a lot of snow on the streets of Chicago.
c. There seemed to appear a dagger in front of Macbeth.
d. There seemed to arrive a train on track 3.
If there could just be generated in the specifier of the raising verb (as proposed by
Bošković 2002, Boeckx and Grohmann 2007), this contrast remains unaccounted for. On
34
Note that this account correctly predicts that “transitive expletives” should indeed be possible in English
when it is the copula that permits generation of the expletive, as in (i).
(i) There is a man eating an apple.
So far as I am aware, these constructions are the only transitive expletive constructions in English apart from
those found with a small set of verbs whose objects are essentially locative, e.g. enter, reach, cross, hit.
(ii) There crossed her mind a most horrible thought. (Kuno and Takami 2004: 49)
(iii) Suddenly there entered the hall an ugly old man. (Levin 1993: 90)
I leave the proper analysis of this latter set of examples for future research.
35
Thanks to Rajesh Bhatt for bringing this pattern to my attention.
19
the other hand, the locality approach makes perfect sense of it. The phase geometry of (38)
is exactly as in (36): the higher there is simply too many phases away from the associate it
must agree with.
(40) Why high generation of there fails with raising verbs

vP
there v
[uF]
v~ √P
√seem vP
v~ √P
√arrive PP
DP PP
!! AGREE fails a train in the Station

across phase edge [F]
Confirmation for this analysis comes from cases where normal raising predicates
such as seem or be likely embed nominals. In this case, the specifier of seem or be likely is
not too far away from the nominal associate, and we find that these predicates can indeed
license there-insertion:
(41)a. There is likely an error in line 3.

b. There seemed nothing we could do for poor Kim.
These facts show quite clearly that the too-many-theres problem with raising verbs arises
not because raising verbs do not license there, but because there must attain a local
relationship with its associate. By building in such a relation, we have been able to solve
both versions of the too-many-theres problem and explain why there with raising verbs
must be generated downstairs (if there is a downstairs).36 The phase-based approach also
allows us to justify and broaden the generalization that there is inserted in Spec,vP: there-
36
The phase-based approach also compares favorably an alternative locality approach based on the Minimal
Link Condition (Chomsky 1995). On this approach, too-many-theres clauses would be ruled out by the lower
there interfering in the relationship between the higher there and the associate. However, an MLC-based
approach fails to predict that cases like (39a,b) should be ungrammatical; given that the higher there is
inserted into a non-thematic Spec,vP and that there is no lower there, the example is wrongly predicted to be
grammatical. The phase-based approach explains why raising verbs must raise there; an MLC approach does
not correctly make this prediction.
20
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insertion targets phasal specifiers which are not otherwise occupied by externally merged
(i.e. thematic) elements.37 Thus, there-insertion allows otherwise illicit feature
transmission via Agree across a phase boundary.
6.2 Merge and Move
A final point on raising verbs, agreement and locality concerns the possible associates that
there can agree with. Importantly, the associate of there cannot be a lower there:
(42) *[ vP there1 v~ [√P √SEEM [TP to [vP there2 v~ [√P √APPEAR [DP a train ]]]]]]]
AGREE AGREE
It is possible for an expletive merged in the lower Spec,vP position (in (42) occupied by
there2) to agree with the associate and then raise; it is not possible for there2 to agree with
the associate, sharing its features, and then to agree qua associate with there1, further
passing on those features. In other words, the expletive in the lower clause can be a link in
a chain formed by movement, but it cannot be a link in a chain formed by merge of
independent elements. I suggest that what we are seeing here is a familiar preference for
chains to be formed by movement, not merger of independent elements. We see
independently that both A and A’ chains are formed by movement whenever possible, with
resumption only as a last resort; if Merge were simpler than Move (as famously suggested
by Chomsky 1995; for critical discussion, see Castillo et al. 1999, Richards 1999, Shima
2000), we might expect chains of resumptive elements to be quite widespread in natural
languages. Expletive constructions, then, are only one piece of evidence that economy
constraints on derivations actually favor movement (work fewer resources harder) over
merger (spend, spend, spend!).
In this connection, of course, something must be said about those cases that
originally motivated the Merge over Move constraint. The empirical fact is a curious one:
when a raising verb embeds a TP, high there-insertion is disallowed even if the associate
raises within the lower clause. Movement of the associate fails to feed local agreement
with there. Accordingly, (43) is barred.
(43) *There is likely a train to arrive in the station.
Given that there is local to its associate in this nevertheless ill-formed example, I suggest
that the problem in such cases does not concern the there-associate link, but the position to
which the associate has moved (as also claimed by Bošković 2002, Boeckx and Grohmann
2007). What is it about the non-finite Spec,TP position in a clause like (43) that could
prohibit the associate from moving there? Perhaps it is that this position is not one in
which nominals can be semantically interpreted. This helps us understand the paradigm of
verbs Postal (1974, 1993) calls the “derived object control” (DOC) class:
(44)a. Stolen documents were alleged to be in the drawer. ✓PASSIVE OF ECM
37
A similar view is advanced by Richards and Biberauer (2005) and Richards (2007), which came to my
attention just prior to publication. Richards and Biberauer justify a phase-theoretic approach on largely
theory-internal grounds and do not use it to constrain agreement relations.
21
b. *John alleged stolen documents to be in the drawer. *ACTIVE ECM OF NP

c. John alleged there to be stolen documents in the drawer. ✓ECM OF EXPLETIVE
Based on this DOC paradigm, Moulton (2007) observes that the Spec,TP position of non-
control infinitives is a “lethal A-position”, semantically speaking. Terms can only move to
such a position if they are prepared to be interpreted elsewhere.
Given the independent evidence that the lower Spec,TP position in (43) is
semantically lethal, the problem in (43) is spurious movement. The associate DP has
moved, but its movement is semantically nullified by the lethal A-position, which will
mandate reconstruction. That there is something wrong with A-movement that stands no
chance of making a difference semantically is also seen in (44b); it seems that if stolen
documents is going to be strong-armed into reconstructing in its post-copular position, it
cannot raise to Spec,TP at all. The only way it can get its syntactic features to that position,
if semantic interpretation is impossible there, is by sending an expletive proxy in its place,
(44c). This is plausibly what happens in there-constructions with raising verbs as well. If
anything at all is to pass through the lower Spec,TP in There is likely to arrive a train in
the station, it will have to be there, which piggybacks on its associate semantically.
Alternatively, given that Spec,TP is ex hypothesi not a phase edge, it may be that nothing
need pass through this position at all, as suggested by Bošković (2002) and Boeckx and
Grohmann (2007).
7 Does there bear Case?
At the outset of the previous section, we saw that the too-many-theres problem would
require abandoning either the view that there does not have Case or the view that there is
no relationship between there and its associate. The second of these approaches, adopted
here, has led to a number of empirical successes. Crucially, not only have we solved the
too-many-theres problem, we have done so in a way that explains why there must be
generated downstairs with raising verbs, even though such verbs are independently capable
of introducing there. Although we could alternatively solve the too-many-theres problem
by stipulating that there must bear Case (i.a. Lasnik 1995), the facts from raising verbs do
not follow from Case alone. Therefore, considerations about the Case-marking of there
must be argued independently from the matters of locality discussed above.
That said, it is entirely possible that the feature F in which there and its associate
agree is a Case feature, or that the two share all features including Case and φ.38 Assuming
some version of Case-sharing allows us to account for the paradigm noted by Lumsden
(1988: 44) for case-marking on wh-words. An associate wh-extracted from a matrix there-
clause can only be nominative:
(45) *Whom was there in the house?
38
For discussion see Safir 1982, Chomsky 1986b, den Dikken 1995, Emonds 2000: §5.5.2, Hale and Keyser
2000, Hazout 2004.
22
Amy Rose Deal
This contrasts crucially with a case where accusative is expected to be transmitted to the
associate, via there, in an ECM construction: 39
(46) Whom/who did Bill expect there to be in the house?
Assuming that there and its associate agree in Case/φ also allows an important
conceptual advantage: it allows us to establish a single unit of locality (viz the phase) over
which all agreement relations are stated, including the relation between a Case-marker and
a Case-marked item and the relationship between there and its associate. Let us see
concretely how this might be accomplished. Supposing that both Case and φ are at stake,
we can take there as entering a derivation with u(nvalued )Case and u(nvalued )φ features.
Its uφ features act as a probe and Agree with the associate DP, unifying the uφ and uCase
features of the associate with those of there. (In order for two elements to agree in a feature
without valuing it, we will need to employ a distinction between valuation and
interpretation along the lines of Pesetsky and Torrego 2004. I assume this distinction here.)
Subsequently, uφ and Case on T0 probe there, Agree with it, and remerge it as specifier of
T.40 A monoclausal example like There appeared a train will be derived as follows:
(47) [TP there T [vP <there> v~ [√P √APPEAR [DP a train ]]]]
uφ, Case:NOM uCase, uφ uCase, φ:3SG
Agree: uφ, uCase

Agree (uCase, uφ) and reMerge
Note that in this example and in any extension of it where there moves successive-
cyclically between its base position and Spec,TP, no Agree relation will be required to
cross more than one phase boundary. (In multiclausal examples we will need to motivate
intermediate steps in successive movement; this is only part of the larger question of how
39
Francez (2006) notes, however, that in matrix examples where case-marking is visible on a pronominal
associate, it is in fact accusative, not nominative. This pattern is also attested in examples of Bolinger’s.
(i) There were them and there was us. (Francez 2006; also attested online)
(ii) If there were only him, you’d be denying the essential goodness of human nature. (Bolinger 1977:116)
This accusative may be a default Case. Examples like these raise the question of whether nominative Case
necessarily makes it to the associate in expletive constructions, suggesting that there may be variation in the
degree to which φ/Case features are shared between expletive and associate; in clauses like there was us,
neither person nor Case is transferred. Interestingly, (accusative) pronouns do not appear as associates of
there with verbs other than the copula:
(iii) *There arrived us/them.
This may be related to the observation that verbs other than the copula do not allow singular agreement with
a plural subject (Rochemont 1978:37, Schütze 1999):
(iv) So say there’re/’s two problems.
(v) So say there arise/*arises two problems.
40
This form of “proxy” analysis of there for both Case and agreement finds a direct antecedent in Chomsky
(1986b,§3.3.3.3.1): “The verb of the main clause agrees with its subject there, which in turn agrees with the
[associate] to which it is linked”. In keeping with technology available at the time, Chomsky went on to
propose a movement-based “expletive replacement” analysis (Chomsky 1986b:179, 1991, 1993, 1995); see
den Dikken (1995), Runner (1995: ch 8), Sabel (2000) and others for critique. See also Hoekstra and Mulder
(1990: 38) for an alternative proxy analysis.
23
successive cyclic movement is linked to or motivated by feature checking, which I leave as

an open question here.)
The approach to contrast with the analysis in (47) goes as follows (following
Chomsky 1995, 2000; see Hazout 2004 for additional critique). If we were to assume that
there does not bear Case and/or φ and that the associate checks its Case/φ directly against
finite T, then the Case/φ-checking relationship between T and the associate will violate
phase locality in multiclausal there-constructions. In (48), the relationship between T and
the associate (shown by the dashed line) crosses multiple “weak” phases, even though we
have seen that the there-associate relationship cannot cross phase boundaries in this way.
(48) A locality gap

TP
there TP
T vP PHASE 1
[NOM]
there v
v~ √P
√seem vP
PHASE 2
there v
v~ √P
√arrive DP
a train
[NOM]
The agreement relations shown in (48) require an apparently ad hoc distinction between
those which must respect all phases, e.g. the relationship between there and its associate,
and those which can seemingly ignore “weak” phases at will, as in the case of the T-DP
relationship. Yet if, as suggested above, there first agrees in Case/φ with its associate, and
then is the target of Case assignment for its associate, the domains for Case-assignment
and there-associate Agreement are the same. Both must be local to every vP, effectively
obviating the need for a distinction between strong and weak phases, pace Chomsky
(2001).
8 Why is there there?
A final concern to address in the study of there is the difficult question of why expletives
like there should exist in natural languages, especially given that economy considerations
24
Amy Rose Deal
disfavor them. In this connection I want to suggest, as many have before, that the purpose
of there-insertion is not entirely separate from the definiteness restriction that famously
(sometimes) constrains it. There-insertion allows an indefinite argument to remain in an
object position in the scope of VP-level existential closure (Diesing 1992, Groat 1995: fn
7). This advantage is lost on definite arguments, which are not subject to existential
closure. However, as the definiteness restriction has been repeatedly proven less than
absolutely universal (Milsark 1974, Bolinger 1977, Rando and Napoli 1978,
Woisetschlaeger 1983, Lumsden 1988, Enç 1991, Ward and Birner 1995, 1996, McNally
1997), the entire explanation for there-insertion cannot be found here. I suggest that most
generally, there is a means for circumventing the EPP requirement that otherwise forces
English subjects to appear high and towards the beginning of the clause. This comes at the
insistence of interface constraints connecting syntax to interpretation and to information
structure; there-insertion allows indefinite subjects to remain structurally low, providing an
unambiguously weak interpretation (and yielding a definiteness effect), and allows novel
material to appear toward the end of the clause, in alignment with information-structural
organization.
Beginning with cases that obey the definiteness effect, it has been noted by Enç
(1991) and others that there-insertion associates are necessarily non-specific; non-specific
nominals must be interpreted within VP, the domain of existential closure (Diesing
1992).41 42 Movement of a non-specific nominal out of VP is only possible if the
movement is semantically undone by reconstruction (interpretation of a lower copy). In
this case it will be ambiguous whether the nominal is to be interpreted specifically or not.
Given this, we might note that there-insertion seems to be the only way of producing
unambiguously non-specific interpretations of subjects in English. (There are not, for
instance, antonyms of a certain N that unambiguously reveal a semantically non-specific
denotation. Even an arbitrary N has a specific reading; it is just not clear which specific
object is being referenced.) Thus, forming a chain via merger of there gives an otherwise
impossible unambiguous LF for a non-specific, VP internal associate.43
Several classes of there-insertion have been identified that do not obey the
definiteness restriction, however: listing or enumerative uses, and what have been called
outside verbals, as in (49). These latter cases are clauses where the associate occurs to the
right of VP (where VP is a cover term for various projections that may fall below vP in a
verbal structure, including √P and any projections required to accommodate modifiers).
(49) Suddenly there [VP flew [PP through the window] ] [DP that shoe on the table ]
(Milsark 1974: 246)
Outside verbals require an associate that is both discourse-novel and prosodically heavy
(Bolinger 1977, Ward and Birner 1996, McNally 1997). The newness condition is revealed
41
If we adopt a property-type or predicative denotation for weak or non-specific nominals (see Zimmermann
1992, van Geenhoven 1998, Dayal 2003, Chung and Ladusaw 2004), our semantics can dovetail with
syntactic claims that the associate is a predicate (i.a. Williams 1994, Hazout 2004, Francez 2006).
42
In terms of the structures adopted here, I assume Diesing’s VP may be taken to be vP. I retain her
terminology temporarily for clarity.
43
Forming a chain with two theres gives no such interpretive advantage, however.
25
by cases like (50) from Ward and Birner, where an otherwise acceptable outside verbal
there-sentence is ruled out by a context in which the associate is not novel:
(50) President Clinton appeared at the podium accompanied by three senators and the
Vice President. #There stood behind him the Vice President.
The heaviness condition is shown in cases like the following, from Bolinger (1977: 117):
(51) Behold! There stands before you *Christ/ the Son of God!
Outside verbals are characteristically diagnosed by (and have been named for) the presence
of one or more constituents between the verb and the associate, e.g. through the window in
(49). Here, however, I will use the term simply to refer to cases where the associate
appears to the right of VP. This will be most easily visible in cases where VP-internal
material intervenes between verb and associate, but is not restricted to such cases.44
(52) Towards the party of tourists there [XP [vP swam] [DP a man in a wetsuit carrying a
harpoon ] ]
The outside verbals are revealing as to the etiology of there-insertion as they show
an interesting cluster of differences from inside verbals (where the associate remains in its
base position vP-internally) and copular there-sentences: unlike these more famous cases,
outside verbals have no definiteness restriction or quantificational restriction, and in
contrast to the stringent restrictions on the verbs that allow there-insertion as inside
verbals, outside verbals allow “a bewildering variety of verbs” (Milsark 1974: 247). This
includes both unergative verbs, (53), and verbs of change of state, (54):
(53)a. Late at night, there crept into the small mountain village a silent band of soldiers.
(Kuno and Takami 2004: 41)
b. Then there danced towards us a couple dressed like Napoleon and Josephine.
(Kuno and Takami 2004: 35)
(54)a. I was stationed at a window looking down upon them, when suddenly there opened
on the opposite side of the quadrangle a folding door, with glass panels, that leads
into a balcony.45
b. Ronald Reagan had a neat, three-sided diagram of the future in his first election: to
reduce inflation, re-establish U.S. defense and balance the budget. But the triangle
would not join, and through the gap in its apex, there ballooned a budget deficit of
terrifying dimensions.46
44
Cf. Kuno and Takami (2004: 45), from which the example is drawn. These authors analyze this and similar
cases as inside verbals due to the absence of an XP between swim and a man.
45
From ‘The Castle of Scharfenstein’, The Novelist’s Magazine, 1833, p. 559. Despite the intervening years
the example remains grammatical for present speakers.
46
From ‘The shaping of the presidency 1984’, Time, Nov. 19, 1984.
26
Amy Rose Deal
The position of the associate to the right of modifier PPs suggests that the associate
is outside VP in the outside verbals. For unaccusative subjects, originating as sister to the
verb root, this position may be derived either via right adjunction to VP or vP, along the
lines suggested by Guéron (1980), Lumsden (1988), Kuno and Takami (2004) and others,
or by associate movement to the edge of vP plus (remnant) movement of the VP.47 On
either analysis, the associate may be taken to have left the vP phase and entered the next,
higher phase. For unergative subjects, taken to originate on the edge of the vP phase,
similar proposals may be considered. For concreteness, I adopt here the VP-fronting
analysis for both types of verbs.48
We have seen above that there originates on the edge of the vP phase in inside
verbals in order to agree locally with its vP-internal associate, ferrying the associate’s
features across a phase edge. In the outside verbals, however, the associate is already
external to vP. There-insertion on the edge of the (lowest) vP is not needed to move the
associate’s features to a higher phase. Therefore, the lowest vP is not the locus of there-
insertion in outside verbals; accordingly, those aspects of vP structure that inveigh against
there-insertion with inchoative and agentive vPs in inside verbals are nullified in the
derivation of outside verbals.
Where, then, is there merged in the derivation of outside verbals? It cannot be
Spec,TP: this position is not on a phase edge, and moreover, cannot be filled directly by
there even when its associate is outside the vP phase (e.g. as the subject of an unergative
verb):
(55) *[TP there [TP T [vP [DP that shoe] [vP Voicev [VP flew through the window] ] ] ] ]
phase
The crucial difference between this ungrammatical example and grammatical cases of
outside verbal there-insertion with unergative verbs is that VP fronting has not occurred
here. This recalls the previous case where we noted there-insertion with unergative verbs:
the progressive, which we analyzed as accompanied by a v~ verbalizer creating a phase
boundary on whose edge there could be generated. I suggest a similar analysis here: there-
insertion is made possible by the generation of an intermediate phase between the associate
and T. This phasal projection provides a landing site for VP fronting, and as no other
element need be externally merged on its edge, there may originate there. VP-movement
has the effect of placing the associate sentence-finally, in a position favored for novel
information by interface constraints regarding information structure. In this position the
associate is independent of VP prosodically, which may explain the weight restriction.
What is the syntactic and semantic identity of the phase head that sets off this chain of
events? I speculate that it is associated with givenness, and will call it G, perhaps
suggestively. Example (49) has the structure in (56):49
47
This analysis is inspired by Larson’s (1988) suggestion that “‘heavy NP shift’ is in reality a case of ‘light
predicate raising’” (p. 347).
48
Facts from NPI licensing favor the VP fronting analysis. Right extraposition places the subject in a
position from which it continues to c-command into VP, and so is expected to be able to license NPIs there.
This prediction is falsified:
(i) *There walked into any classroom no one from my department.
49
I have omitted for simplicity the trace of cyclic movement of VP through the specifier of the lower vP.
27
(56) T
T GP
there GP
AGREE VP G
G vP
flew through
the window DP v
Voicev <VP>
that shoe on the table
A similar, VP-fronting analysis may be adopted for locative inversion, which seems to
make use of the same class of verbs as the outside verbals (Levin and Rappaport Hovav
1995: 220). The preposed PP is (comparatively) discourse-old (Ward and Birner 1996) and
may be taken to occupy a Topic position in the left periphery. With the PP extracted, the
fronted VP is no longer necessarily prosodically independent, and therefore locative
inversion lacks the requirement that the associate be heavy (though it shares with there-
insertion a requirement that the associate be (comparatively) discourse-new).
(57) Through the window flew John.

(cf. *There flew through the window John)
Levin and Rappaport Hovav (1995: ch 6) argue that locative inversion requires a verb that
is “informationally light” so as not to “detract from the newness of the information
conveyed by the postverbal NP” (p. 230). This requirement seems to be shared by outside
verbal there-insertion and may be analyzed in terms of a givenness requirement on the
fronted VP, though I leave the full analysis for future research.
We may conclude from our investigation of the wider range of there-sentences that
there is essentially an agreement mediator in both inside verbal and outside verbal there-
sentences. We see that it can indeed ferry the associate’s features to a higher Spec,TP in an
outside verbal, via raising:
(58)a. There is believed to have sat next to Mary a stranger (Rochemont 1978: 55)
b. In these momentary vistas there seem to open before me bewildering avenues to all
the wonders & lovelinesses I have ever sought.50
c. There seemed to vanish from his mind any recollection that he had ever held any
opinion other than the approved one.51
These examples suggest that the role of there-insertion in both inside and outside verbal
constructions is to allow the associate’s grammatical features to migrate to a high position
50
H.P. Lovecraft, quoted at http://theteemingbrain.wordpress.com/category/quotations/
51
http://www.snyders.ws/alan/quotes/chambers.htm
28
Amy Rose Deal
in the structure while allowing the associate itself to remain low. In terms of Case and
agreement, the expletive is a proxy for its associate. Having such a proxy structure allows
the associate nominal to divorce its grammatical position from its discourse status,
receiving all the grammatical benefits of subject position (Case, agreement, &c) without
adopting the information-structural and syntactic commitments of actually surfacing there.
9 Conclusion
This paper has been concerned with two properties of the expletive there. Based on
evidence from apparent “selection”, I have argued that there must be generated low. In an
inside verbal, the presence of a thematic element in Spec,vP preempts there; this includes
both the nominal argument of a Voice head and the eventive argument of a CAUSE head.
This suggests that there must be generated in the specifier of a verbalizer head v which is
not occupied by some thematic element. In the inside verbals, this is the lowest Spec,vP. I
have argued that this position is targeted because it is a phase edge. Higher functional
structure may introduce additional phase edges which may also house there, enabling
there-insertion with all sorts of verbs in the progressive and an intermediate range of verbs
in the outside verbal construction. The wider range of verbs allowed in the former
configuration may be due to the necessary backgrounding of the VP in the outside verbals.
The core locality fact explored here, that there is merged in the Spec,vP position
because it must agree with its associate in a local fashion, moves us toward an
understanding of the content of the expletive. There contains features which agree with
those of its associate. The driving force behind there-insertion is the fact that there is an
agreer, not the fact that it is devoid of descriptive semantic content (as enshrined in the
Extended Projection Principle of Chomsky 1981). If we can identify the features in which
there and its associate agree as including a Case feature, we attain the desirable result that
all agreement relations may be stated over the same domains, i.e. phases; we dispense with
any need to partition phases into “strong” and “weak” categories.
The conception of there as a Case/agreement “ferry” has also allowed us to explore
the reasons that expletives like there exist in natural language. We have seen that the
agreement that there enters into allows its associate to remain low in the structure while at
the same time sharing Case and agreement features with the vP-external subject position.
This is advantageous either because the associate is a non-specific nominal which must
undergo existential closure, or because it is novel to the discourse and optimally placed at
the end of the clause. These two interface-driven considerations correspond to different
syntactic solutions, the inside and outside verbal constructions, respectively. The findings
overall suggest that English expletive constructions have much to offer for future research
not merely on narrow syntax but also on the interfaces of the syntactic engine with
semantic interpretation, information structural partitioning and what have been considered
lexical aspects of the meanings of verbs.
29
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Department of Linguistics
University of Massachusetts Amherst
226 South College
Amherst MA 01003
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The Origin and Content of Expletives: Evidence from “Selection”

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Deal, Amy Rose. 2009. The origin and content of expletives:

Published Version doi:10.1111/j.1467-9612.2009.00127.x

Accessed July 12, 2016 3:39:36 AM EDT

Citable Link http://nrs.harvard.edu/urn-3:HUL.InstRepos:4263738

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Amy Rose Deal

Keywords: there-insertion, inchoatives, economy, agreement, phase theory

(1) a. There appeared a shadowy figure in the doorway.

(2) a. *There laughed a man in the hallway.

2 The problem of origin

(4) a. *There rained.

(6) A train slowed (on the eastbound track).

(7) [TP a train [ T [VP slow <a train> ] ] ]

MOVEMENT DRIVEN BY [EPP]

3 There-insertion and the structure of causatives

(9) There-insertion is incompatible with

In order to formalize the generalization in (9’), a definition of the heretofore scare-

The proper representation of change-of-state, inchoative or anticausative

(11) CAUSE: λP<s,t> λe ∃e′ . P(e′) & direct-cause(e)(e′)

3.1 Prepositional modifiers

(12)a. The window cracked from the pressure

b. Die Vase zerbrach von selbst

Of particular importance is the contrast with non-inchoative unaccusatives (i.e.

(15) The student arrived early by herself

(16) The plane arrived from Tokyo/*from the tailwind.

(17) Inchoatives; *there-insertion

(18) Non-inchoative; there-insertion: hang

3.2 Eventive/stative contrasts

(20)a. There bloomed a rosebush on the patio. [stative; ✓there]

3.3 Causative alternations

(21) intransitive structure(s) transitive structure

(22)a. ?The magician disappeared a rabbit.

4 Contexts for there-insertion

(23)a. Unergative b. Transitive

(25) a. Inchoative b. Non-inchoative unaccusative

(26) a. λPλe′λe . P(e) & direct-cause(e′)(e)

b. Severing the causing event from its CAUSE head

s λe′λe . broken(the window)(e) & direct-cause(e′)(e)

√BREAK the window

5 The special status of there be

(27)a. There were several people arrested over the weekend.

(28)a. There was a child loudly singing in the campground.

(29)a. There will be a unicorn in the garden at 8 pm.

b. There is a problem with the coffeemaker.

(30)a. *There laughed a child in the hallway.

(31) A structure for (30b), There is a child laughing.

a child Voicev √laugh

6 Agreement and the content of there

6.1 Too many theres

(32)a. *There seemed there to be a man in the room.

These examples are a problem for Chomsky’s (2000) high-generation-of-there account,

(33) The too-many-theres problem

a train in the station

(34) *There is there arriving a train in the station.

√arrive DP in the station

!! AGREE fails a train

Thus, as a consequence of the structure of unaccusatives, there in There is a train arriving

b. John alleged stolen documents to be in the drawer. ACTIVE ECM OF NP