"The Syntax and Semantics of Locative there-sentences in Italian"

In this paper we analyse the syntactic and semantic properties of locative there-sentences in Italian according to a corpus and usage based approach. This approach allows us to identify and classify the different uses and to uncover the polysemous status of the structure. This finding supports our hypothesis that the verbal form in locative there-sentences has a predicative function and that its argument structure is bivalent. From a theoretical point of view, we provide a frame-based analysis (Fillmore 1977, 1985; Fillmore at al. 2012) of locative there-sentences and account for the polysemous nature of the predicate in terms of the concept of co-variation in meaning, which is due to the semantics of the arguments and to the situational context they appear in. We rely on the principle of co-composition (Pustejovsky 1995, 2012) to justify the co-variation in the interpretation of the predicate+its arguments. Keywords: locative there-sentences, existentials, argument structure, syntax-semantics interplay, frame-analysis, co-composition, corpus linguistics, Italian