Some syntactic and semantic properties of the existential construction in Malagasy

The existential construction with the predicate –isy in Malagasy is shown to have an unaccusative structure in which the predicate may take either (i) a DP-complement, with an optional locative adjunct and an optional PP or (ii) an IP-complement. The structure is empirically supported by various facts about adverb placement, coordination, word-order, extraction, certain cases of tense-matching between –isy and a following thematic predicate, as well as the lack of the stage-level vs individual-level predicate distinction in the construction. It is argued that the predicate –isy introduces an existential quantifier binding (i) a variable that certain DPs or the locative phrase can in principle provide or (ii) the event or unprojected arguments of a thematic predicate. The definiteness effect arises from existential quantification interacting with the structure of headless relative clauses and the constraint barring strong quantifiers in predicate position.

► The predicate of existence takes either a DP-complement or an IP-complement. ► The syntactic structure is supported by independent diagnostics for constituency and extraction. ► The existential interpretation arises from unselective binding of a variable. ► The definiteness effect arises from unselective binding interacting with the distribution of strong quantifiers.