An analysis of sentences with nonreferential there in spoken American English

Abstract

This study investigates topic continuity of the logical subject and the post-subject element of sentences with non-referential (NR) there in spoken American English. Three types of speech were analyzed: informal conversation, radio show call-ins, and narration. Sentence-level analyses were also conducted to compare the results with those of previous studies. Modified versions of referential distance (RD) and decay developed by Givón (1983a, 1984) were used to quantify the topic continuity and topic maintenance of the logical subjects and the post-subject elements. The results indicated that the logical subjects of NR there sentences tended to introduce a sub-topic of a broader discourse topic as relatively new information whereas the post-subject elements tended to contain a referent of relatively high continuity, linking the sub-topic introduced as the logical subject of the sentences to the preceding part of the discourse. Although the NR there sentences in the three types of speech shared general trends, they displayed some qualitative difference in their roles in the discourse.