Valency model and existential constructions. An analysis of the Polish equivalents of the German “es gibt” sentences

Abstract

The paper presents an analysis of the Polish existential constructions equivalent to the German “es gibt” sentences. The focus lies on the following aspects: the syntactic function of the pronoun es in the existential “es gibt” sentences, syntactic determination of the nominal phrase (NP) in the Polish equivalents of the German sentences, the explanation of the sentence‑final position of the NP in the information structure (in case of existential reading), as well as the agreement markers in the Polish equivalents of the “es gibt” sentences with negation. The author of the paper gives consideration to the possible explanations offered by the dependency grammar model and to how these explanations can be supplemented and enhanced by other approaches.