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Where Stylistic and Syntactic Processes Meet: Locative Inversion in English

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  12 March 2026

Peter Coopmans
Peter Coopmans*
Affiliation:
University of Utrecht
*
Research Institute for Language and Speech, University of Utrecht, Trans 10, 3512 JK Utrecht, The Netherlands
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Abstract

In this paper I argue that there is no unique grammatical process called ‘stylistic locative inversion’ in English; its properties can be stated in purely syntactic terms if insights about similar constructions in Italian and Dutch are adapted to English. Stylistic locative inversion exemplifies what is sometimes referred to as ‘semi-pro-drop’, the existence in a language of an empty expletive subject. The language-particular trigger for this exceptional phenomenon in English is located in comp, explaining in part the root nature of the phenomenon. The proposed analysis sheds new light on a syntactic account of the related presentational there-construction, which is discussed briefly at the end of the paper.

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Type
Research Article
Information
Language , Volume 65 , Issue 4 , December 1989, pp. 728 - 751
Copyright
Copyright © 1989 by Linguistic Society of America

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