This article contrasts existential constructions in English and Chinese in terms of semantic variability and dimensions of semantic variation, distribution of Definiteness Effect and existentiality on the basis of corpus instances and their contextual features. Exploratory and confirmatory analyses show that: (1) existential construction in English varies more widely than its Chinese counterpart; (2) existential constructions in English and Chinese differ in covert/overt expression of background information, semantics of the existential verb and the noun phrase (NP) whose existence is asserted as well as an interaction between presence of a coda and NP definiteness. Contextual features such as semantics, number, quantification and modifier of NP and covert/overt expression of background information are found to have a significant effect on the distribution of Definiteness Effect. The survey on existentiality indicates that the concept has multiple manifestations in form. Reasons for these linguistic phenomena are discussed from various perspectives.

中文翻译：

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英汉存在结构对比：基于语料库的语义研究

本文基于语料库实例及其上下文特征，从语义变异性和语义变异的维度、确定性效应的分布和存在性等方面对英汉存在结构进行了对比。探索性和验证性分析表明：（1）英语中的存在结构比中文差异更大；(2) 英汉存在结构在背景信息的隐/显表达、存在动词的语义和被断言存在的名词短语(NP)的语义以及尾声的存在与NP确定性之间的相互作用方面存在差异。上下文特征，如语义、数字、发现NP的量化和修饰以及背景信息的隐/显表达对确定性效应的分布有显着影响。对存在性的考察表明，这个概念在形式上有多种表现形式。从不同的角度讨论了这些语言现象的原因。