Description
This thesis uses a discourse-analytic approach to examine the nature of inferential relationships, specifically the Discourse Status of postverbal noun phrases, in the English existential in a corpus of contemporary short fiction. The main goal of this study is to determine whether existential there sentences introduce bridging inferrables which are Hearer-new but Discourse-old in the post-copular position more often than Hearer-new Discourse-new noun phrases. This study hypothesizes that because of the adherence to strict word-limits, short fiction authors are pressured to condense information and will utilize the existential there construction to introduce new entities into the narrative that are linked to previous discourse (bridging inferrables). Elements such as narrator and point of view are included in discussion when addressing sensitive and complex discourse constraints of the English existential.
