Cartographic Study on Generalized Existential Sentences

Through elaborating the syntactic features of different types of "Generalized Existential Sentences" and with the previous researches as it references, this paper aims to draw a map for the syntactic position or domain of "Existential Functional Head". It is suggested that different types of "Generalized Existential Sentences" that are governed by different "Existential Operators" located at respective hierarchical positions with seemingly different syntactic performances on the surface actually follow the same generating mechanism. Based on Mandarin data and some cross-linguistic comparisons, through making a thorough discussion from four perspectives-"the grammaticality of internal argument under the influence of Existential Closure", "the Existential Operator under the influence of Aspect Marker", "the Existential Operator at the ModP layer" and "the explicit Existential Operator at the ExiP layer", this paper makes an in-depth exploration on the basic generating process of different "Generalized Existential Sentences" and investigates how the "Existential Force" is realized during the whole syntactic operation. The final conclusions are as follows: the operating domain of the Existential Operator should be located between the IntP layer and the ModP layer while itself can be named after "ExiP" with strong functional feature and put in the left periphery.