“Expletives” as Discourse Markers: Semantic and Pragmatic Considerations in “It” and “There”

This paper explores the syntactic and semantic configurations of expletives “it” and “there.” It attempts to show that expletives are not just syntactic fillers; they are semantic markers and are pragmatically bound NPs that can be co-indexed with covert referents. The study follows a theoretical approach and applies Bolinger’s (1977) Meaning and Form model to the syntactic configurations of expletives. The syntactic structures of expletives are based on the syntactic theories of generativist linguists, namely Chomsky (1986). Chomskyan syntactic theories describe the various formal characteristics of expletives without analyzing their semantic and pragmatic implications. This study premises that Bolinger’s theoretical modal can fill these missing gaps and can provide a conclusive yet not final description of these gaps. The study recognizes expletives as discourse bound markers and authenticates their contextual and sociological significance. systematic

UNIVERSITY OF CHITRAL JOURNAL OF LINGUISTICS AND LITERATURE VOL. 5 | ISSUE I | JAN -  ISSN (E): 2663-1512, ISSN (P): 2617-3611 Cook & Newson (2007) locate the insertion of expletives in the poor inflectional property of English. English does not admit inflected verbs in case of all subjects. It's inflected when third persons singular feature as subjects. The projection of the subject does not find any morphological expression due to poorly inflected property of verb. This makes the phonological realization of subject obligatory in English. Dummy subjects like "it" and "there" are inserted when the sentence lacks any realized NP that can function as the subject of the sentence.

The Syntax of Expletive "It"
Syntactically, expletives are considered slot fillers. They are added as subjects when the predicate either does not require or does not have any explicit agent. The projection rule for expletive "it" can be expressed as (i).
i. "It [BE NP]" As can be observed in (i), "it" as expletive is marked by verb "be" followed by NP as complement. This projection rule yields a syntactic tree (ii).
(ii) (ii) shows that "it" as an expletive is bound by predicate "be." In other words, predicates "try" or "hit" cannot be the complements of expletive 'it" because these predicates are dyadic and must take one external argument (subject) and one internal argument in the form of a complement.
This explains the unacceptability of the following sentence. Meteorological predicates like "rain, hail, snow etc." and "time" bear null theta grade. They are, therefore, expressed with "it" as a syntactic argument.
6. "It snows." 7. "It's ten o' clock." 8. "It's too hot today." The pronominal "it" assumes a thetaless structure in such constructions because the mentioned predicates do not require any theta marked agentive subject. As stipulated in EPP 2 , a clause without an overt subject is not syntactic viability. The insertion of expletive "it' as a syntactic argument (subject) is done to satisfy EPP.

Semantic and Pragmatic Configurations of "it"
Bolinger (1980, p. 30), however, does not regard this insertion as a syntactic requirement only, and the idea that the real information is packaged in the verb "raining" and so the external argument bears zero theta also needs a more empirical support.
9. "It's raining." This expletive, however, has the same referential property as "it" in (10) wherein "it" has some obvious referent in the given context. 10. "It's unsafe down here." So the sentence (10) can be presented as (11) at the D 3 -level.
1 Asterisks (*) mean unacceptability 2 According to EPP, "All clauses must have subjects " Carnie (2001, p. 173). A sentence without any theta-marked subject can acquire acceptability provided that this gap is filled in by an expletive. EPP will subsequently not filter it out as unacceptable structure. In (21), "it" has co-indexical relation with a referent already broached in the discourse and hence has a prior referent: 21. "I can understand it that the election hurt them." Similar observation can be made about (22) where the expletive "it" has almost a pronominal representation and refers to something in the discourse: 22. "It isn't that he's a Republican that I find so objectionable." In (22), the negation implies the denial of something affirmative because it is very unusual that a person may utter this sentence on his or her entry into the room.

Extraposition
Exraposition, according to Chomsky (2006, p. 44), is a phenomenon when "it" is introduced as a subject in a sentence that has another constituent as a subject as illustrated in the following examples: 23. "For him to understand this lecture is difficult." 24. "It is difficult for him to understand this lecture." In (24), the phrase" for him to understand this lecture" has been moved outside the subject position and has been replaced with expletive 'it." Extraposition is a syntactic phenomenon that describes the meaningfulness of "it." The use of expletive "it" is not considered a semantic possibility when cleaving of a sentence happens without any prior information. In an answer to a question (a), a person is not likely to say (b): 25. "Where will she go?" 26. *"It is to Canada that she will go." However, in response to (27), (28) is likely: 27. "Where did she go?" 28. "It was to Canada that she went.
The acceptability of (28) is due to the fact that "it" is inserted as a possible semantic marker for the prior information of where she went.
The following two questions are not the same.
(29). "Who came?" (29) can be answered with an expletive structure as in (31) but (30) cannot be answered with "it" because (29) presupposes mutual understanding between the interlocutors which is missing in (30). In case of latter the arrival of the person is virtually out of the blue and hence the construction cannot take "it" as an anaphoric constituent for something which is thoroughly unexpected.
31. "It was John" 32. *"It was John." The same applies to the following wherein "someone" lends known information to the sentence and actuates the use of "it" as a semantic filler.
33. "Someone else came. ---Yes, It was John." A prior basis is assumed for the event that has already taken place and "it" is inserted in such constructions in order to describe the event as 34. "It was a pleasure to entertain you." 35. "I had no trouble at all; it was easy to convince him." The expletive "it" attains a pronominal status in situations like the following cleft structure (36) where it represents an understood antecedent. Likewise, there is no overt antecedent in (37) and hence, the insertion of "it" as a semantic filler makes the sentence a questionable acceptance.
36. "It would be inexcusable that they should do such a thing." 37. (?)"It would be inexcusable that they should run away." Moreover, just as "it" as a pronominal neuter is the formal counterpart of definite article "the," the expletive "it" also bears the notion of specification in a given context. This is illustrated in example (38).

"Did you hear it?" -Did I hear what?"
"Did you hear the noise?" 39. "Not for a minute did I believe the story (believe it) that John has disappeared." The interface between "it" and "the" on the basis of definiteness validates the point that a shared knowledge about a pragmatically specified NP actuates the use of pronominal "it" and the same applies to expletive "it" which is added not as a syntactic filler but a semantically meaningful constituent for some specified NPs. In (40), "it" may be taken to mean "I can't stand John's not being around." 40. "I can't stand it when John's not around." But in answer to the question (41), "it" may be interpreted as "I can't stand this place when John's not around." 41. "Why are you leaving?" --because I can't stand it here." It is even comparable to a demonstrative "this" in a situation like (p): 42. "It's (this is) nice, isn't it? -What's nice?-Sitting around and talking." The phonological representation of covert referent is sometimes made within the clause itself as an afterthought as in (43) or something neuter like "things" as in (44): 43. "It's tough when you have to work all day." 44. "Things are tough when you have to work all day." Chafe (1970, p. 101) observes that in constructions like (45), the expletive "it" is all encompassing in the sense that the possible antecedent is total environment, not an individual entity inside it.
45. "It's hot." In addition, "it" does not have any role in the semantic structure of the sentence. The sentence, if applied to John, will imply the ambient heat that John feels, not his inner sensation of heat. So the possible paraphrase of the sentence will be (46).
46. "It's hot with respect to the experience of John." For Bolinger (1977, p. 78), "it" in (45) can be recognized as a pronominal that has "environment" as its antecedent in the manner that Chafe (1970)  The oddity of (50) is attributable to the inappropriate analysis of expletive "it" within the totality experience.
To sum up, "it" as an expletive is more semantic in its insertion and embraces diverse concepts like weather, time, circumstance or simply whatever is obvious by the nature of reality or the implications of context. If A comes up with (51), B is will interpret "it" as "A's concern" as the referent of "it." 51. "It's over; he's dead and I am free." In much the same way, B will take "it" as the "state of John's health" if A utters (52).
52. "John looks like a ghost-it's terrible, but there's no remedy for it." Pragmatic considerations may expand or contract the semantic dimension of "it." The expletive "it" is a semantically loaded constituent and the generality of meanings, contends Bolinger (1977) that it exhibits must not be described as a subject filler only. Syntactic configurations must not be the predominant occupation while analyzing the expletive "it." It is oversimplification of the issue to call it a syntactic filler because a deep analysis of the "it" shows that a covert antecedent always lurks in the background with every use of "it."

"There" Construction
"There" as expletive features in a couple of syntactic structures. It dominantly comes as existential "there" and expresses the existence of an NP/NPs in a situation. Different projection rules for existential "there" are given below.

The Syntax of Existential "there"
(a). "there [BE NP LocP]" As illustrated in (a), the existential "there" takes copula as V followed by a locative phrase as an adjunct. "There" in such constructions features as upper subject while the NP that comes the complement of the NP functions follows the verb "be" functions as lower subject. The subjectverb agreement is carried out between the verb and the NP that serves as lower subject as given in "There" in such constructions also take PP/Adverb Phrase (Adv.P 5 ) as an obligatory adjunct.
The second projection rule for existential "there" can be expressed as (b):
54. "There is a giraffe standing on the porch." Syntactic tree for (54)  "There" construction also admits passive participle as a complement. This rule has been described as (c) and illustrated in (55).
(c). "there [BE NP PassP]" 55. "There was a purse found at the library." (55) will yield figure (v) as the tree diagram. (v) In addition, there is yet another possible syntactic structure in which "be" takes definite NP as a complement.
56. "There՜ 6 is a Santa Claus." The tree diagram for (56) will be (vi). In addition to the mentioned patterns, existential "there" can also appear in Unaccusative 7 predicate constructions. So we can write the fifth projection rule for "there" construction as (e):

"A package arrived last week."
The NP "a package" in (61) has no external theta role. "A package" originates as an object and is then raised to subject position to satisfy the case filter. "A package" here is not an agent but an NP 7 Unaccusative verbs are those which lack an external argument and therefore cannot assign accusative case to their complement-NP. Unaccusative verbs such as "arrive" appear intransitive at the surface level but which has some properties of the transitive verbs. Intransitive verbs cannot appear in "there" construction while unaccusative verbs can: 57. "There arrived a party from Boston." 58. *"There telephoned a party from Boston." Moreover, intransitive verbs can take special objects which in a sense duplicates the meaning of the verb known as cognate objects: 59. "He died a terrible death." Unaccusative verbs, on the other hand, cannot take cognate objects, a property they share with transitive verbs. (61) can be expressed as (62). 62. "There arrived a package last week." This existential pattern cannot be used with every verb. So we can say (63), but not (64).

The Formal Structures of "there"
Cattell (2006, p. 185) considers existential "there" an NP with zero Ɵ-role. Like "it," expletive "there" is inserted when the sentence does not have any understood subject. It, however, does not act as external argument of the sentence and is therefore Ɵ-less. The generative approach to "there" constructions is that it is a semantically empty constituent and its insertion is carried out with no semantic implications. Its addition, therefore, is a purely syntactic phenomenon and is licensed under EPP (Cook & Newson 2007, p. 87). Moreover, as mentioned in projection rule (a), "there" constructions admit two subjects: upper and lower. Though existential "there" appears as an upper subject, it is the lower subject that undergoes agreement with the verb. Consider the following sentences.
65. "There is a student in the class." 66. "There are students in the class." In (65), the verb "is" appears in inflected form because the NP following the verb is singular. The uninflected verb "are" in (66), however, is licensed by the plural NP "students." These examples show that existential "there" takes subject slot in the sentence but the true subject in both cases is the lower subject -the NP that comes as the complement of the verb "be." Moreover, as illustrated in the projection rules above, "there" cannot occur with every predicate: 67. *"There offered to join the movement." Definite NPs also do not occur in "there" construction: 68. *"There are they in the room." but "there' in such constructions, according to Baker (1995, p 426), serves as a locative phrase.
Following this mode of analysis, "there" in (56) is locative, not existential. Due to its locative nature, the sentence also does not take obligatory adjunct.
80. "*There is a Santa Clause in the room." This locative "there" is also stressed while existential "there" is always unstressd. Moreover, as Haegeman (1994) contends, existential "there," unlike place adjuncts, cannot be questioned: 81 (a). "I saw Bill there last week." 81 (b). "Where did you see Bill last week? "There." 82. "*Where are three horses escaping?" In 81(b), the locative "there" has been questioned while the same cannot be attempted about existential "there" as in (82).

Bolinger on Expletive "There"
Syntactically, the insertion or deletion of existential "there" is something optional and the constructions that take "there" can conveniently be expressed by assigning the subject slot to the lower subject as shown in case of sentence (53).

"
The sheep is in the barn." Bolinger (1977, p. 91), however, views this insertion in a different perspective. For him existential "there" may be considered the extension of locative "there" with a meaning that refers to a generalized location. It is not a dummy operator or a redundant word but a fully functional word that can better be recognized by its absence in the sentence.
The insertion of "there" as expletive is unmarkedly done in case of those events about which no prior assumptions are made. It is quite unnatural to start a story like (84): 84. *"In Xanadu once lived a king." Rather the more natural form will be "there" construction as in (85): 85. "In Xanadu there once lived a king." The use of "there" assumes a mandatory dimension when no background knowledge has been provided about the scene and "there" presentative is introduced with the intention of orienting the listener to the scene. However, once the stage has been set and the scene established, then "there-less" presentative works well as in (86) In (86), the first clause is "there" presentative because no prior knowledge is available about the scene, but the second clause is without "there" due to the availability of requisite knowledge about the scene.
Likewise, in an answer to a query (87), the listener may very likely say (88) because the question aims at identifying the person, not his presence which has already been established in the discourse.
87. "Who's in the next room?" 88. "John is." Contrary to this, the question (89) may receive the answer with "there" construction as (90). A question like this does not presume any prior information about the supper and hence, "there" presentative is an acceptable form for the description of such events.
89. "What's for supper tonight?" 90. "There's bread and beans." Similarly, "grocery" in (91) is to be taken literal but mental in (92) The passive structures also follow the same paradigms that actives follow: indefinite NPs ("some half dozen boxes of books" and "several interesting specimens") and "there" with locative meaning.

Conclusions
The study derives the following conclusive findings about the expletive markers "it" and "there." a. "It" as a syntactic argument is not a null NP void of any theta grade.
b. "It" is inserted with semantic considerations and has the referential property of pronominal "it" at D-structure.
c. As expletive "it" bears prior information and hence takes an understood antecedent in the discourse.
d. Existential "there" marks events that carry no prior information. Hence, its use assumes a sociological character.
e. As expletive, "there" is recognized by indefinite NPs, universal quantifiers and unaccusative verbs.
f. Determinate NPs marked with "the" cannot be the complement of "be" in "there" constructions. This happens because a definite NP can attain subject slot in a finite clause but indefinite NPs marked with indefinite articles are characteristically expressed in "there" structures. Certain grammatical contexts like alternate questions, however, admit definite NPs in "there" constructions.
g. "There" construction can undergo passive transformation provided that the transformed structures are either agentless or the agent is punctuated as an afterthought.