Grammatical metaphors and there-insertion in Danish

Abstract

Transitive verbs are in general not allowed in there-constructions in Danish, but a small subset is, and this paper gives an explanation. We suggest two constraints on there-insertion, a subject with the semantic role of themeand an empty object position, and show how the subset of verbs meets these constraints while other transitives do not. The analysis is formalized within the framework of Linearization-based HPSG.