Existential constructions are a fundamental feature of many Indo-European languages and
constructions with non-referential subjects have developed in all of the latter albeit at
different stages in their histories. High German does not feature a prototypical existential
construction that is equivalent in syntactic and pragmatic function and semantic meaning to the
English existential there-construction. How did a prototypical existential structure originate
in English? Why is it that High German has never developed such a construction? Has it ever
shown a tendency towards developing one? How did two closely related languages such as English
and High German come to differ so much with respect to these constructions? By means of
investigating a variety of historical and contemporary data this study shows that not only
semantic pragmatic and syntactic factors are involved which decide the choice of a certain
construction but also very much the more general different linguistic development that the two
languages underwent in the course of time.
