Definiteness Effects in There-Constructions

It is well-known that the existential there-constructions are subject to the definiteness constraint, but intriguingly, the definiteness effect disappears when the post-copular NP is extraposed. The two phenomena are quite puzzling, in that they contradict each other. This paper explores the possibility of explaining the seemingly contradictory phenomena on the basis of the principle of economy. The main claim of this paper is that the definiteness effects of the existential there-sentences arises from the fact that there has a third person feature and no redundant feature checking is permitted, and the anti-definiteness effects of the presentational there-sentences follows from the fact that the extraposed constituent consists of a variable and its content.