# A definite noun in existential sentences--possible?



## cheshire

Generally, an definite noun component can't be the subject in an existential sentence, except in such sentences as "Here comes Mary." 

This "rule" seems to apply to both Chinese and Japanese, too.

What about it in other languages?

Ex. in Chinese

qiang shang gua zhe yi zhang rili. (only indefinite)

Esx.in Japanese

そこには一冊の本がある　（「は」は不可。）


----------



## I_like_my_TV

> Generally, an indefinite noun can't be the subject in an existential sentence


What do you mean by this?

_"A cat was lying on the mat."
"A man is standing in front of the front door."_
These examples are what I understand as existential sentences with an indefinite noun as the subject; and sentences like these are very common. Some misundertanding somewhere??


----------



## Joannes

cheshire said:


> Generally, an *in*definite noun can't be the subject in an existential sentence, except in such sentences as "Here comes Mary."
> 
> This "rule" seems to apply to both Chinese and Japanese, too.
> 
> What about it in other languages?


 
Could it be that you are mixing up ‘definite’ and ‘indefinite’? I’d say definite subjects are rarer and often need a certain context to turn up in existential sentences.

I think "Here comes Mary" only works as a counterexample if you meant _in_definite. I would say Mary is rather definite in that sentence, although it doesn’t get marked in the language as people’s names don’t get articles in English. I also think you can argue about whether the sentence is really an existential one, though.

In Dutch the most important existential construction is one with *er*. This peculiar word takes the place of the subject (and can also get inverted with the verb, see example (2a) below) but it is not to be considered a real subject because (a) it’s adverbial rather than nominal, (b) it doesn’t refer to some (active) participant, (c) it’s not a trigger for number agreement with the verb.

Below you find some examples of this *er*-construction. You can see that if the *subject* (that is not in its usual place) is definite (with article *de* (gendered) or *het* (not gendered) as opposed to indefinite *een*), the sentences are ungrammatical (*) or at least need some specific context (*?), which I think mostly would get rid of the existential meaning.

(1a) *Er is een gat in die emmer.* ‘There’s a hole in that bucket’
(1b) *?*Er is het gat in die emmer.*
(2a) *Is er een dokter in de zaal?* ‘Is there a doctor in the room?’
(2b) **Is er de dokter in de zaal?*


----------



## Outsider

What is an indefinite noun?


----------



## I_like_my_TV

Outsider said:


> What is an indefinite noun?


An indefinite noun is a noun that refers to something that is general, not specific, because not much information about it is known by the speaker or hearer. 

For example: _a man, a cat, a book, a university_ are all indefinite nouns. In contrast to the foregoing, _The man, that man, this man, John, Mary, the cat, this book, my University, the University I went to, London University, University of Manchester_ are all definite nouns.


----------



## DearPrudence

I thought an existential structure was:
*"There is a cat yawning on your avatar"*

And in such a case, the indefinite article "a" is almost compulsory as you present a thing that has not been introduced before, so that you could not use "the" ...

I don't think "Here comes Mary" is an existential structure, is it?

Otherwise, you _could _say:
*"Un chat est sur votre avatar"*, it's not grammatical incorrect
but nobody will say that but rather:
*"Il y a un chat sur votre avatar"*

I'm confused

*end of interruption*


----------



## Outsider

I_like_my_TV said:


> An indefinite noun is a noun that refers to something that is general, not specific, because not much information about it is known by the speaker or hearer.
> 
> For example: _a man, a cat, a book, a university_ are all indefinite nouns. In contrast to the foregoing, _The man, that man, this man, John, Mary, the cat, this book, my University, the University I went to, London University, University of Manchester_ are all definite nouns.


Thanks, but I don't understand very well. In most of those cases, the difference lies in the article, not the noun...


----------



## Q-cumber

There are no articles in Russian, so...


----------



## I_like_my_TV

> In most of those cases, the difference lies in the article, not the noun...


Not really, since under the noun, under the form there's something more substantial than the noun or the form itself.

Anyway, I think it may be not quite appropriate for me to go further than this.


----------



## Outsider

I_like_my_TV said:


> Not really, since under the noun, under the form there's something more substantial than the noun or the form itself.


Maybe, but that "something" (noun phrase?) is not what we normally call a "noun".


----------



## cheshire

1.墙上挂着(*一张*)日历 
2. 墙上没有挂着(*那*)张日历。

In 1, an indefinite "noun unit" must come in the parenthesis.
But in a negative "existential snentence," a definite noun unit must come there instead!


----------



## Joannes

Outsider said:


> Maybe, but that "something" (noun phrase?) is not what we normally call a "noun".


 
You're right. Definiteness is a feature of nominal constituents / noun phrases as a whole rather than one of nouns. But definiteness isn't always marked by articles (which relatively often are the same as a demonstrative pronoun (definite) or the word for 'one' (indefinite)). It could also get marked by an affix or a clitic (which could be phrasal rather than attached to the head of the constituent).



cheshire said:


> 1.墙上挂着(*一张*)日历
> 2. 墙上没有挂着(*那*)张日历。
> 
> In 1, an indefinite "noun unit" must come in the parenthesis.
> But in a negative "existential snentence," a definite noun unit must come there instead!


 
I'm sorry, could you translate those sentences? And explain again what you would like to know? You completely lost me, I'm afraid.


----------



## cheshire

Somehow in Chinese the requirment for an indefinite noun group gets reversed for a negative sentence.


----------



## DearPrudence

Could you please translate your sentences as I'm still not sure what you call an "existential structure"?


----------



## cheshire

1.墙上挂着(*一张*)日历  On the wall hangs a calendar.
2. 墙上没有挂着(*那*)张日历。 There isn't any calendar on the wall.

1.У мня ести маси*а*. (I have a car.)
2.У мня *нет* ести масин*ы*. (I have no cars.)

There's something going, why does a negative existential sentence require the genitive? It serves making the subject concrete.


----------



## Whodunit

In German, such a rule doesn't exist. Using your sentence:

Es hängt ein Kalender an der Wand. (= a calendar)
Es hängt kein Kalender an der Wand. (= no calendar)
Es hängt nicht ein Kalender an der Wand. (= not any calendar)

"ein" is the indefinite article, but we would say that the noun "Kalender" is *indetermined*, not *indefinite*.


----------



## karuna

cheshire said:


> 1.У мня ести маси*а*. (I have a car.)
> 2.У мня *нет* ести масин*ы*. (I have no cars.)
> 
> There's something going, why does a negative existential sentence require the genitive? It serves making the subject concrete.


 
Are these examples in Russian? If so they should be corrected:
У меня есть машина.
У меня нет машины.

But I doubt that the genitive subject is more definite than nominative. Latvian has the same structure:
_Man ir mašīna. _= I have a car.
I (dative) is (3rd pers., present, sing.) a car (nominative).
_Man *nav* mašīna*s *_= I have no car.
I (dative) not (3rd pers., present, sing., negative) a car (genitive).

It is debatable whether the last sentence has a grammatical subject at all because the subject should be in the nominative case. But even if for the sake of argument we accept that _mašīnas _is the subject in this sentence it still is as much indefinite as _mašīna _in the sentence with the positive verb. But of course, there are no articles and the distinction between definite and indefinite nouns is very fuzzy.

*Mod Note*: Discussion about whether every sentence has to have a subject in every language moved here.


----------



## vince

cheshire said:


> 1.墙上挂着(*一张*)日历  On the wall hangs a calendar.
> 2. 墙上没有挂着(*那*)张日历。 There isn't any calendar on the wall.
> 
> 1.У мня ести маси*а*. (I have a car.)
> 2.У мня *нет* ести масин*ы*. (I have no cars.)
> 
> There's something going, why does a negative existential sentence require the genitive? It serves making the subject concrete.



Could you translate the Chinese sentence? What would the incorrect definite noun phrase look like?

What language are the last two sentences in? It looks East Slavic like Belarusian or Ukrainian to me.

French also uses genitive in negative phrases like that:

Il a un chat
Il n'a pas *de* chats.


----------



## cheshire

Thanks, karuna, your help is definitely, infinitely welcome!



> (3) У меня есть машин*а*.
> (4) У меня *нет* машин*ы*.


Do Slavic language speakers really perceive that sentence as having no subject? I doubt it, for the change of case in машин*ы *would be as a result of creating more clear distinction from its positive sentence form (just like the redanduncy in "ne...pas" instead of just "...pas" in French.)

It would be *felt* as a subject, but it takes the genitive case *in form*, in order to show clearly that it is a negative existential sentence.


----------



## karuna

cheshire said:


> Do Slavic language speakers really perceive that sentence as having no subject? I doubt it, for the change of case in машин*ы *would be as a result of creating more clear distinction from its positive sentence form (just like the redanduncy in "ne...pas" instead of just "...pas" in French.)




Some Russian sentences do not require the subject at all. I just asked a native speaker and she said that "У меня" is felt as the subject and "машины" is more like an object. Apparently the semantic subject  is different from the grammatical subject. It is common for Latvians to make a mistake and use the nominative case in this sentence, so it would confirm that _mašīnu_ is sometimes perceived as a subject. But it is interesting to note that Russian native speakers are not likely to make this mistake. 

Russian also uses the genitive with some other positive verbs as well, mostly in set expressions. See: http://forum.wordreference.com/showthread.php?t=406473


----------



## vince

cheshire said:


> Thanks, karuna, your help is definitely, infinitely welcome!
> 
> 
> Do Slavic language speakers really perceive that sentence as having no subject? I doubt it, for the change of case in машин*ы *would be as a result of creating more clear distinction from its positive sentence form (just like the redanduncy in "ne...pas" instead of just "...pas" in French.)
> 
> It would be *felt* as a subject, but it takes the genitive case *in form*, in order to show clearly that it is a negative existential sentence.



In French, the functional word for negative is "pas" , and that's what is used in the spoken language. It is only in written French and formal speaking that "ne..pas" is used.

Literally, У меня есть means "By me, is ..."

So you have " I have a car"  = " By me is (a) car"
but "I have no car" = " By me is not of car"

The car is the grammatical subject, it becomes clearer with sentences in the past tense:

u menja byla mashina = I  had a car (" By me wasn't (feminine) car")
u menja ne byl*o* mashiny = I didn't have a car "By me wasn't (neuter) car")

(sorry i can't type Cyrillic here)

The verb inflects based on the gender of the object. But when it is a negative sentence, the verb reflects a NEUTER object because the subject is a genitive phrase (mashiny = "of car" ) and no longer a simple noun (mashina).

Whatever happened to the verb imet', why did Russian people stop using it for simple possession?


----------



## vince

karuna said:


> Some Russian sentences do not require the subject at all. I just asked a native speaker and she said that "У меня" is felt as the subject and "машины" is more like an object. Apparently the semantic subject  is different from the grammatical subject. It is common for Latvians to make a mistake and use the nominative case in this sentence, so it would confirm that _mašīnu_ is sometimes perceived as a subject. But it is interesting to note that Russian native speakers are not likely to make this mistake.
> 
> [/color]




How about verbs like nravit'sja?

If a person says Jemu nravitsja russkaja ikra, what would people perceive as the subject, Jemu (to him), or russkaja ikra (russian caviar)?

or how about phrases like Mn'e kholodno or Mn'e veselo, would the subject be perceived as "mne" (to me), or the invisible impersonal subject (like the "il" in "il fait chaud" in French)


----------



## karuna

> The verb inflects based on the gender of the object. But when it is a negative sentence, the verb reflects a NEUTER object because the subject is a genitive phrase (mashiny = "of car" ) and no longer a simple noun (mashina).


Interesting observation but I don't agree that the genitive of машина somehow changes gender. To have a genitive phrase more than one word is required, for example, много машин (many cars). Two words in translation is cheating.  Let's say, I don't have a good car. У меня нет (не был*о*) хорош*ей* машины. Adjective is still in feminine. It shows exactly that машины cannot be the subject. 



> Whatever happened to the verb imet', why did Russian people stop using it for simple possession?


It still used for innate qualities: иметь стыд (to have a shame).


----------

