Description:
<jats:p>The focus of my analysis is the so-called existential construction. The languages examined are English, Swedish and Icelandic. The present article assumes the perspective of Ronald W. Langacker's cognitive grammar as the theoretical background. First of all, the assumption is that the unstressed, initial pronoun<jats:italic>there</jats:italic>, or its Scandinavian equivalents, are semantically definable as abstract-setting subjects of their respective sentences, with, possibly, the exception of Icelandic þ<jats:italic>a</jats:italic>ð. Secondly, the conceptualization of the existential scenes in the three languages is a dynamic process in each case. The dynamicity of the semantics of existential scenes is the result of assuming two planes, the actual and a virtual one, and establishing correspondences between them. The actual plane reflects our direct apprehension of reality. A virtual plane consists in the dynamic re-assignment of roles to the actual elements introduced by means of the virtual abstract-setting subject.</jats:p>