2.1 Basic usages of the verb become

The verb become is a linking verb that means ‘to start to have a feeling or quality, or to start to develop into something’, according to the Longman Dictionary of Contemporary English (6th edition; hereinafter, LDOCE6). Since the role of this type of verb is to link the subject of the sentence to a noun or an adjective, it must be followed by a complement phrase as in (2a–c):

1. (2)

   1. (a) Pollution from cars has become a major problem. [the noun phrase]

   2. (b) The weather became warmer. [the adjectival phrase]

   3. (c) Slowly my eyes became accustomed to the darkness. [the past participle]

      (LDOCE6)

The verbs in (2a–c) select the noun phrase, the adjectival phrase and the past participle, respectively. As a result of a certain event, the referent of the subject noun comes to be something or comes to be in some state described by the complement phrase. In contrast, the verb does not select an adverbial phrase as its complement as in (3). In addition, become cannot be used with locatives as in (4a–b); that is to say, sentence (4a) does not mean that Mary came to be at the office.

1. (3) * He became in his thirties. [the adverbial phrase]

2. (4)

   1. (a) *Mary became at the office. (Bresnan Reference Bresnan1994: 76)

   2. (b) *A mouse became in the soup. (Ingria & George Reference Ingria, George and Pustejovsky1993: 120)

Based on these descriptions, if this study assumes, along the lines of almost all studies of there constructions, that postverbal noun phrases are logical subjects, rather than complement phrases, the usage of there sentences with become in (5a–c) seems exceptional in that no complement phrases occur. That is to say, as the noun phrases a need and a point are the logical subjects of the there sentences in (6a–c), the noun phrases a need, a point and fewer and fewer people are also considered the logical subjects of the there sentences in (5a–c).

1. (5)

   1. (a) As more and more communities flourished, there became a need to connect them for the purposes of trade and other things. (iWeb) (=(1a))

   2. (b) There becomes a point in your band's career where everything is a make or break situation. (COCA: SPOK) (=(1b))

   3. (c) As you age, there become fewer and fewer people whose advice is actually relevant. (COCA: MAG) (=(1c))

2. (6)

   1. (a) There is a need to revise the financial schema. (constructed)Footnote ³

   2. (b) There comes a point when you have to face reality. (constructed)

   3. (c) There arose a need to revise the financial schema. (constructed)

The use of the verb become without complement phrases is not allowed in (7a–c), the sentences that are supposed to correspond semantically to the examples in (5a–c):

1. (7)

   1. (a) *As more and more communities flourished, a need to connect them for the purposes of trade and other things became. (constructed)

   2. (b) *A point becomes in your band's career where everything is a make or break situation. (constructed)

   3. (c) *As you age, fewer and fewer people whose advice is actually relevant becomes. (constructed)

Therefore, the use of the verb become without complement phrases is the idiosyncratic pattern only observed in there constructions.

2.2 Verbs in there constructions

This section outlines the types of verbs usable in there constructions (e.g. Bolinger Reference Bolinger1977; Milsark Reference Milsark1979; Lumsden Reference Lumsden1988; Breivik Reference Breivik1990; Erdmann Reference Erdmann1990; Levin & Rappaport Hovav Reference Levin and Hovav1995; Kuno & Takami Reference Kuno and Takami2004). Generally, only (unaccusative) verbs denoting existence or appearance are acceptable in there constructions because the main function of there constructions is to present a new entity to the discourse, and existence and appearance verbs effectively fulfill this pragmatic role. Compare (8a–c) and (9a–c):

1. (8)

   1. (a) There is a flowering plant on the windowsill. (Levin Reference Levin1993: 88)

   2. (b) There remained three documents on his blotter when he pressed his desk bell. (Levin & Rappaport Hovav Reference Levin and Hovav1995: 150)

   3. (c) There began a riot. (Milsark Reference Milsark1979: 16)

2. (9)

   1. (a) *There slowed a train on the eastbound track. (Deal Reference Deal2009: 286)

   2. (b) *There broke a candle. (Irwin Reference Irwin2012: 74)

   3. (c) *There melted a lot of snow on the streets of Chicago. (Levin Reference Levin1993: 90)

The verbs used in (8a–c) denote existence or appearance. In contrast, examples in (9a–c) are not acceptable because the verbs are not classified as either existence or appearance verbs.

Allow me to introduce two studies with comprehensive lists of verbs: Erdmann (Reference Erdmann1990) and Levin (Reference Levin1993). Interestingly, even these comprehensive studies do not refer to become as a candidate for the main verb in there constructions.

Erdmann's (Reference Erdmann1990) verb list:

• verbs of position or being: exist, hang, lack, lie, live, loom, reside, run ‘stretch’, sit, spread, stand, wait, want ‘lack’

• verbs of occurring and happening: beat (heart), come ‘arise’, develop, echo, form, go ‘pass’, happen, occur, sound, unfold

• verbs of motion: come, depart, enter, float, gather, intrude, lurch, move, paw, run, travel

• aspectual verbs: appear, begin, diminish, emerge, open, persist, remain, rise, show (itself/oneself), start, survive, vanish (Erdmann Reference Erdmann1990: 67–8)

Levin's (Reference Levin1993) verb list:

• verbs of existence: blaze, bubble, cling, coexist, correspond, decay, depend, drift, dwell, elapse, emanate, exist, fester, float, fly, grow, hide, hover, live, loom, lurk, overspread, persist, predominate, prevail, project, protrude, remain, revolve, reside, rise, settle, shelter, smolder, spread, stream, survive, sweep, swing, tower, wind, writhe

• verbs of spatial configuration: crouch, dangle, hang, kneel, lean, lie, perch, rest, sit, slouch, sprawl, squat, stand, straddle, stretch, swing

• meander verbs: cascade, climb, crawl, cut, drop, go, meander, plunge, run, straggle, stretch, sweep, tumble, turn, twist, wander, weave, wind

• verbs of appearance: accumulate, appear, arise, assemble, awake, awaken, begin, break, burst, dawn, derive, develop, emanate, emerge, ensue, evolve, exude, flow, follow, gush, happen, issue, materialize, occur, open, plop, rise, spill, steal, stem, supervene, surge

• verbs of inherently directed motion: arrive, ascend, come, descend, drop, enter, fall, go, pass, rise

• verbs of manner of motion: amble, climb, crawl, creep, dance, dart, flee, float, fly, gallop, head, hobble, hop, hurtle, jump, leap, march, plod, prance, ride, roam, roll, run, rush, snail, shuffle, skip, speed, stagger, step, stray, stride, stroll, strut, swim, trot, trudge, walk

• verbs of sound emission: beat, boom, chime, ring, rumble, shriek, tick

• verbs of sound existence: echo, resound, reverberate, sound

• verbs of light emission: flare, flash, flicker, gleam, glimmer, glisten, glitter, scintillate, shimmer, shine, sparkle, twinkle

• verbs of substance emission: belch, puff, radiate

• other verbs: chatter, doze, idle, labor, lounge, preside, reign, sing, sleep, toil, wait, work

  (Levin Reference Levin1993: 89–90)

The neglect of become in the studies is not surprising because the semantic constraint on verbs predicts that the verb become cannot be used in there constructions. Some studies explicitly mention the unacceptability of the verb become in there constructions, as in (10a–b):

1. (10)

   1. (a) *There became a mouse in the soup. (Ingria & George Reference Ingria, George and Pustejovsky1993: 120)

   2. (b) *There became a man (conspicuously absent). (Brandt Reference Brandt2003: 34)

However, as repeatedly mentioned above, the verb become can be used in there constructions.

Some studies such as Bolinger (Reference Bolinger1977) and Kayne (Reference Kayne1979) present examples of become as in (11), but this pattern is outside our scope because it does not violate the ordinary argument realization pattern of become in that the verb is followed by the adjectival phrases. These examples are acceptable because the combination of become and the particular type of adjectives such as visible enables the sentences to express the existence or appearance of an entity.

1. (11)

   1. (a) There became visible a faint discoloration just below the surface. (Bolinger Reference Bolinger1977: 90)

   2. (b) There became available a great many seats. (Kayne Reference Kayne1979: 715)

To the best of my knowledge, only two studies, Jenset (Reference Jenset2010) and Li (Reference Li2017), include become in their verb lists. Jenset (Reference Jenset2010), a quantitative historical study, found there sentences with become using three types of historical corpora (the York–Toronto–Helsinki Parsed Corpus of Old English, the Penn–Helsinki Parsed Corpus of Early Modern English and the Penn–Helsinki Parsed Corpus of Early Modern English, 2nd edition). Moreover, Li (Reference Li2017) reported that there sentences with become were observed in COCA. Nevertheless, these two studies do not, unfortunately, provide examples of there sentences with become nor do they discuss their behaviors.Footnote ⁴

As far as I know, Kuzar (Reference Kuzar2012) is the only study to investigate there sentences with become (without the adjectival phrases) found in present-day English. Kuzar (Reference Kuzar2012: 68) makes the following observations:

Kuzar (Reference Kuzar2012) is exceptional for the brief reference to the usage of there sentences with become. However, satisfactory analyses of how and why become can be used with there constructions are lacking. Thus, more research is necessary to reveal the special usages of there sentences with become. It would be beneficial for the study of both become and there constructions to investigate there sentences with become.

3.1 Frequency

This section investigates the number of examples of there sentences with become present in the three genre-balanced corpora: COCA (1.0 billion words), BNC (100 million words) and WB (600 million words). When examining WB, this study excluded the following seven subcorpora because these are composed of historical or translated examples: UK books2 fiction/non–fiction (1813–1901), UK children's fiction (1847–1930), US children's fiction (1849–1900), US books; fiction (1726–1905), Canadian novels (children's fiction) (1872–1909), South African Newspaper (Johncom Media) and German Fairy Tales (1843). As a result, the size of WB amounted to 593,277,823 words. The corpora were scanned for there sentences with become using the following seven search strings: there became, there become, there becomes, there has become, there have become, there had become and there _vm become.Footnote ⁵

Since previous studies have seldom discussed there sentences with become and the use of the verb become violates the semantic restriction on verbs in there constructions, it might be thought that there sentences with become can never be found even in large corpora such as COCA and BNC. However, a review of COCA, BNC and WB databases revealed that there sentences with become are relatively common (tables 1 and 2). Table 1 presents the raw and normalized frequencies (per one million words) of the seven forms of there sentences with become in COCA, BNC and WB. Table 2 provides the genre-based distribution of there sentences with become in COCA; the subsections of COCA are fiction (FIC), magazine (MAG), newspaper (NEWS), academic (ACAD), spoken (SPOK), TV shows (TV), movies (MOV), blog (BLOG) and web (WEB). The example for each form, except there have become and there had become, is given in (14a–e):

1. (14)

   1. (a) “There became a growing suspicion that glasswork wasn't done with the effort that one would consider as going with an important piece of art,” said Ferdinand Hampson, president of Habatat Galleries. (COCA: NEWS)

   2. (b) And that's when there become some health risks with this. (COCA: SPOK)

   3. (c) There becomes a moment when you might have to check your moral compass and your gut, and figure out what's the right thing to do. (COCA: MOV)

   4. (d) Over the last decade or two decades, increasingly, there has become this sense of partisan warfare all year long. (COCA: SPOK)

   5. (e) When the football interests of our members would take precedence over the needs of the basketball schools, I thought there would become some kind of a separation. (COCA: NEWS)

Table 1. Raw and normalized frequencies (per one million words) of there sentences with become in COCA, BNC and WBFootnote ⁶

Table 2. Genre-based frequency of there sentences with the verb become in COCA

In total, 65, 6 and 22 examples were found in COCA, BNC and WB, respectively. Thus, it is not the case that no there sentences with become can be found in large corpora. Moreover, many of the expressions, especially there becomes, were observed in the spoken genre in COCA. Their frequent use, especially in the present tense, in the spoken genre is noteworthy because a large number of previous studies have claimed that there sentences with non-be verbs are basically used in written genres such as fiction (e.g. Johansson Reference Johansson, Nevalainen and Kahlas-Tarkka1997; Biber et al. Reference Biber, Johansson, Leech, Conrad and Finegan1999; Martínez Insua Reference Martínez Insua2004). This issue will be discussed again in the next section.Footnote ⁷

Because only looking at the results of there sentences with become is not enough to grasp the accurate distribution of such examples, this study investigates the frequency of five other verbs (arrive, hang, run, swim and walk) in there sentences. These five verbs are often used in the literature on there constructions, as in (15a–e):

1. (15)

   1. (a) There had arrived a lot of buses and military tanks. (Duffley Reference Duffley2020: 150)

   2. (b) There hung a picture of Moses on the wall. (Stowell Reference Stowell1978: 468)

   3. (c) Suddenly there ran out of the bushes a grizzly bear. (Aissen Reference Aissen1975: 2)

   4. (d) There swam towards me someone carrying a harpoon. (Lumsden Reference Lumsden1988: 38)

   5. (e) There walked into the bedroom a unicorn. (Milsark Reference Milsark1979: 246)

Table 3 presents the raw and normalized frequencies (per one million words) of seven forms of there sentences with arrive, hang, run, walk and swim in COCA, BNC and WB, similar to there sentences with become. As can be seen comparing table 1 and table 3, there sentences with become are found more often than those with these five verbs in COCA. In addition, there sentences with become are more often attested than those with arrive, run, swim and walk in WB. Thus, the use of there sentences with become is not extremely rare. However, surprisingly, the usage has been ignored for such a long time. Few previous studies have observed the existence of there sentences with become; however, some native speakers of English use such sentences.

Table 3. Raw and normalized frequencies (per one million words) of there sentences with arrive, hang, run, swim and walk in COCA, BNC and WB

3.2 Reinterpretation of change as appearance/occurrence

This section investigates the semantics of there sentences with become. Close observation of examples in (16a–d) shows that they express the appearance/occurrence of referents of postverbal nouns. For example, (16a) denotes the coming-into-being event of considerable concern:

1. (16)

   1. (a) There became a tremendous amount of concern about the potential for the population to go extinct, and recovery efforts were undertaken. (TV: 2017)

   2. (b) As information was rolling in, there became a realization that there needed to be more structured communication tree [sic]. (Coronavirus: US (20-03-15))

   3. (c) But as the days wore on, there became a possibility that Juliette could be transferred to the NICU at Midtown Medical Center in Columbus. (NOW: US (16-11-23))

   4. (d) Following the retirement of the manager for John's Kitchen, there became an opportunity to apply for the manager's position. (NOW: NZ (16-6-21))

The fact that the verbs in (16a–d) are substituted with genuine appearance verbs, such as appear, arise and emerge, as in (17a–d), verifies the appearance meaning of become:

1. (17)

   1. (a) There arose a tremendous amount of concern about the potential for the population to go extinct, and recovery efforts were undertaken. (constructed)

   2. (b) As information was rolling in, there emerged a realization that there needed to be a more structured communication tree. (constructed)

   3. (c) But as the days wore on, there appeared a possibility that Juliette could be transferred to the NICU at Midtown Medical Center in Columbus. (constructed)

   4. (d) Following the retirement of the manager for John's Kitchen, there emerged an opportunity to apply for the manager's position. (constructed)

Interestingly, contrary to the claim by Kuzar (Reference Kuzar2012), examples are not restricted to religious contexts; for example, (16b) and (16c) were found in medical contexts. Thus, although there sentences with become are indeed novel and infrequent, they are nevertheless stored in the linguistic knowledge of native English speakers and uttered in various situations.

Among the attested nouns in the corpora, two types of nouns are frequently used: need and temporal nouns such as point and time as in (18a–e) and (19a–d).

1. (18)

   1. (a) “We're putting together mockups of the systems we're designing and there became a need to find more shops other than the local shops we rely on for small builds and quick turnaround items,” he said. (COCA: ACAD)

   2. (b) This is the reason why there became a need for a mod such as More Player Models. (iWeb)

   3. (c) It is not being used yet but was readied in case there becomes a need to address surge capacity in response to COVID-19. (Coronavirus: US (20–04–17))

   4. (d) When there are two people working together, there becomes a need to communicate back and forth. When there are three, there becomes a need to coordinate tasks, etc. (NOW: US (20–11–17))

   5. (e) With the booming population of the military and the public in Hawaii, there became a need for even more and more power plants, mostly using oil to steer them. (iWeb)

2. (19)

   1. (a) There becomes a point in your band's career where everything is a make or break situation. (COCA: SPOK)

   2. (b) There becomes a tipping point when accumulated injustice overwhelms one's resources to handle or ability to accommodate it. (NOW: US (20–06–28))

   3. (c) Stay and fight. There becomes a time when you have to cut bait and go, and I believe very strongly this is the time. (COCA: SPOK)

   4. (d) There becomes a moment when you might have to check your moral compass and your gut, and figure out what's the right thing to do. (COCA: MOV)

For example, 6 out of 27 examples of there becomes in COCA and 2 out of 6 examples of there becomes in WB are used with time nouns such as point and time, and the use of time nouns in the present tense is thus one of the characteristics of there become.

The examples in (19a–d) operate in a way similar to the examples in (20a–b), where there sentences with the verb come select temporal nouns for their subjects, especially in the present tense. Interestingly, about 80 percent of the subject nouns of there sentences with comes are time nouns such as time or point in COCA and BNC (Mino Reference Mino2020). In the case of (20a–b), there sentences with comes denote the appearance of a certain time:

1. (20)

   1. (a) There comes a point in your adult life when you realize that you're really the only one who can decide how you live. (COCA: TV)

   2. (b) There comes a time in every company's growth when an employee manual really is essential. (COCA: MAG)

Despite the use of the different types of verbs, both the sentences in (19a–d) and (20a–b) are interpreted similarly to aphorisms, which are concise statements that illustrate a general truth and/or principle (e.g. A bad penny always turns up; You have to take the good with the bad.). For example, (20a) means that in one's adult life, a certain time comes when you realize that you're really the only one who can decide how you live. This similarity between (19a–d) and (20a–b) suffices as evidence of there sentences with become expressing appearance.

We are now in a position to answer the following two questions to identify the general characteristics of there sentences with become: (i) what is the semantic role of the postverbal noun and (ii) why can the verb become be used in there constructions? Here we would like to consider these issues based on example (18e).

Let us first consider the semantic role of the postverbal noun phrase. The noun phrase a need is structurally a logical subject in there constructions, and the subject of the verb become should be interpreted as an entity undergoing a change in canonical SV patterns. However, the postverbal noun in there sentences with become is an entity that has arisen as a result of the changing event. That is to say, in the case of (18e), as a result of the ‘booming population of the military and the public in Hawaii’, there arises ‘a need for even more and more power plants, mostly using oil to steer them’. Thus, in this there construction, elements not normally found in the subject appear in the subject position.

Now, let us tackle the second question: why can the verb become be used in there constructions? We claim that change can be reinterpreted as the emergence of something new, and in particular, the verb seems to represent emergence (especially ‘occurrence’), as the speaker subjectively focuses on only the resulting entity in the changing event. Thus, it fits well with the function of introducing new information in there constructions and is acceptable as an example of there constructions. This may roughly be diagrammed as in figure 1. Some entity is considered to occur as the consequence of the changing event.

Figure 1. Reinterpretation of the changing event as the emergence of a need

There are other there sentences, the postverbal nouns of which are interpreted as resulting entities. For example, the verb result is classified as a verb of appearance in Levin (Reference Levin1993: 258) and thus selected as a main verb of there constructions, as in (21a–c). Less frequent examples are those with the verb materialize, as in (22a–b), and this verb is also a verb of appearance in Levin (Reference Levin1993: 258).Footnote ⁸

1. (21)

   1. (a) If this process goes on long enough, parent and daughter species can no longer interbreed, and there results a new species. (OED2)

   2. (b) There results a rupture between the innate classicism of his dancers and the tics of his mannerisms, which distorts but does not illuminate the qualities of his cast. (NOW: GB (12–04–09))

   3. (c) As the sea cuts into the land, the cliff collapses and the collapsed material is broken down and transported away, there results the slow development of a wavecut platform. (BNC: written)

2. (22)

   1. (a) And there materialized a rainbow to the port side (at my ten o'clock), a great bow of color shimmering in the mist, almost making a complete circle meeting somewhere under the surface of the water. (COCA: FIC)

   2. (b) And women themselves are hardly monolithic; when Warren tweeted about billionaires, there materialized a thread of responses accusing her of pandering – presumably, to female voters – and others accusing her of not pandering enough. (NOW: US (19–12–15))

Each sentence above denotes the occurrence of a resulting entity, suggesting that logical subjects can be interpreted as resulting entities.

Nevertheless, it is important to note here that the two verbs, result and materialize, can express the occurrence of a resulting entity even in the ordinary intransitive construction, which is radically different from become:

1. (23)

   1. (a) Anger may result from an argument. (OED2)

   2. (b) Problems were expected, but they never materialized. (LDOCE 6)

Thus, only the verb become exhibits the abnormal argument selection pattern when occurring in there constructions. Theoretically, the ‘emergence’ meaning of become is considered caused (or coerced) by its use in there sentences.Footnote ⁹ That is to say, the construction adds a semantic and formal property to the sentences, and thus, the original properties of the verb become are replaced or removed.

3.3 What type of appearance/occurrence does the sentence represent?

This section elaborates on the kinds of appearance/occurrence the expression can represent. First, there sentences with become cannot express the physical appearance of concrete entities, such as humans and animals, as shown in (24a–c):

1. (24)

   1. (a) *From the room, there became a handsome man. (constructed)

   2. (b) *There became into the park very young men. (constructed)

   3. (c) *There became a mouse in the soup. (=(10a))

In the case of (24a–c), there has only been a positional change in the persons or animals, but no internal change has occurred in them. They were not suddenly born from somewhere. They existed before the change, and they did not come into being as a result of a location change.Footnote ¹⁰ This unacceptability of human and animal nouns is a difference from there sentences with appear and emerge, as in (25a–b). These sentences can freely express a locational change of the referent of the subject noun.

1. (25)

   1. (a) Behind the lady there appeared an elderly woman who made gestures and movements with her mouth, as if she wanted to say something. (COCA: FIC)

   2. (b) Suddenly there emerged a thirty-year-old woman wearing a navy blue suit and talking intensely on her comm. (COCA: FIC)

In contrast, there sentences with become are required to express a change of state because of its lexical meaning.

The discussion by Kuzar (Reference Kuzar2012) is useful in elaborating on the kind of appearance there sentences with become can represent. Consider the sentences with the verb develop from (26a–b) through to (28). Develop can be used as the main verb of there sentences because this verb lexically expresses a certain kind of occurrence, as in (26a–b). In fact, according to LDOCE6 regarding the example in (27), ‘if a problem or difficult situation develops, it begins to happen or exist, or it gets worse’ (emphasis added). This definition indicates the close relationship between ‘change of state’ and ‘occurrence’. It naturally follows then that (28) with a human noun is not acceptable.

1. (26)

   1. (a) There developed some unrest. (Lumsden Reference Lumsden1988: 38)

   2. (b) There developed at the meeting many terrible objections. (Milsark Reference Milsark1979: 250)

2. (27) Trouble is developing in the cities. (LDOCE6)

3. (28) * During this time, there develops a child very rapidly. (Kuzar Reference Kuzar2012: 148)

According to Kuzar (Reference Kuzar2012: 148), (28) is unacceptable because ‘a child cannot “develop” in the sense of “coming gradually into being”’. In other words, the verb develop can only be used when it expresses ‘coming gradually into being’. When something changes (gradually) and crosses a threshold at a certain point, it is seen as an emergence.

To test whether this is the case, let us look at more there sentences with become. Consider examples (29a–b). These two examples describe the emergence of physical entities, rather than abstract ones, but are still acceptable:

1. (29)

   1. (a) Also, know your limits as a boat operator and pay attention to what the weather is going to do, not just what the weather is doing at that time. An overloaded boat can become very dangerous when there becomes a heavy chop on the water. (NOW: US (21–09–08))

   2. (b) It was a big deal, and I think it was probably late Saturday or maybe early Sunday, Charlie Cartwright, Jack Rudy, and two or three of their customers came onto the convention floor. And everybody saw them, and all of a sudden there became this kind of crowd around them, like, you know, people amazed by this tattooing. (MOVIE: 2013)

Example (29a) is a sentence describing the occurrence of a wave, and it is acceptable because it describes a wave that has become higher, not one that came from the other side. Thus, as a result of the rise of waves, there arose a giant wave. Example (29b) is acceptable because it describes how those who saw the tattoos of Charlie Cartwright, Jack Rudy and so on were startled and gathered around them, resulting in a crowd. In other words, (29b) describes a crowd arising, not the movement of a crowd that originally existed.

Let me now turn to contexts wherein there sentences with become are preferred. Since this pattern denotes the occurrence as a result of some changing event, it is natural that it often co-occurs with the conjunction as, as in (30a–c) and (31a–c), because the conjunction is ‘used to indicate that something happens during the time when something else is taking place’ (OED2). There sentences with become can occur in main clauses as in (30a–c) or in as-clauses, as in (31a–c):

1. (30)

   1. (a) As more and more communities flourished, there became a need to connect them for the purposes of trade and other things. (=(1a))

   2. (b) As information was rolling in, there became a realization that there needed to be more structured communication tree. (=(16b))

   3. (c) As the number of hungry increased there became a need for the food bank.

      (NOW: CA (17–06–27))

2. (31)

   1. (a) “As time progressed and there became greater concern about the impact of phosphate mining, these became very large environmental assessments,” Fellows said, calling the assessments “books” on impacts of individual mines. (NOW: CA (17–06–27))

   2. (b) As that story evolved over time and as there became more public awareness that she was stuck in this conservatorship, seemingly against her will, our focus began to shift to investigate that, more than exploring the cultural phenomenon of Britney. (NOW: US (21–10–13))

   3. (c) “As there becomes a greater concentration of stock ownership among a few firms,” he said, “they need to make sure that shareholders know why they've made the decisions they have.” (NOW: US (19–02–19))

The following sentences occur in other contexts that emphasize the (gradual) change:

1. (32)

   1. (a) With the rise of international empires and trade links, the cheap mass-production of goods and expanding wealth through all sectors of society, there became a greater demand for goods. (iWeb)

   2. (b) But over the years, there became a new version of it that was much more public and interested in trying to express that they were creating a positive change in the world that went along with their wealth. (NOW: US (21–10–04))

Examples (32a–b) describe the change of circumstances with the help of with the rise of and over the years. In addition, nouns with comparative adjectives are often used as a subject of there sentences with become, as in (33a–b) and (34a–b). See also (31a–b) and (32a).

1. (33)

   1. (a) “From the very beginning of the pandemic, there became more and more issues with the way that we would normally transport folks,” spokesperson Jeremy Desel said. (NOW: US (20–07–23))

   2. (b) But if the supply isn't there, I think there becomes more and more public pressure to have a ZEV mandate. (NOW: CA (18–11–19))

2. (34)

   1. (a) As you age, there become fewer and fewer people whose advice is actually relevant. (COCA: MAG) (=(1c))

   2. (b) How did you get along as things changed, as there became more French people in the area? (WB: spoken)

Interestingly, although the subject nouns of (34a–b) are human, fewer and fewer people and more French people are still acceptable. This is because these sentences denote the increase in the number of people, rather than their physical appearance. Thus, there sentences with become tend to be used when the result of the (gradual) change is construed as the appearance of a new state.Footnote ¹¹

3.4 Co-occurrence with locatives

This study has demonstrated that there sentences with become express appearance/occurrence. This gives rise to a new question: if the sentences can express appearance/occurrence, can they co-occur with locative phrases?

As discussed in section 2.1, the verb become cannot be used with locatives in the canonical SV order, as in (35a–b). However, there sentences with become can co-occur with locatives, as in (36a–c) and (37a–c): the locatives appear directly after the verbs in (36a–c), but not in (37a–c).

1. (35)

   1. (a) *Mary became at the office. (Bresnan Reference Bresnan1994: 76)

   2. (b) *A mouse became in the soup. (Ingria & George Reference Ingria, George and Pustejovsky1993: 12) (=(4))

2. (36)

   1. (a) There became in him a sense that he was being watched. (constructed)

   2. (b) There became in their relationship a tension that wouldn't go away. (constructed)

   3. (c) At that time, there became in Rome an internal struggle between Julius Caesar and Gnaeus Pompeius Magnus. (constructed)

3. (37)

   1. (a) There becomes a point in your band's career where everything is a make or break situation. (COCA: SPOK) (=(1b))

   2. (b) When no obvious suspect emerges, when investigations grind to a halt, tunnel vision often sets in. In the minds of police, there becomes only one suspect, and all the circumstantial evidence seems to point to them and render all irregularities coincidence. (NOW: CA (14–11–15))

   3. (c) We were very fortunate that we were able to cut through the clutter early on, before there became such a huge proliferation of labels in the area. (NOW: US (11–01–20))

Examples (36a–c) and (37a–c) suffice as evidence that there sentences with become express the appearance/occurrence in the designated space. The use of the locative with the verb become in (38a–c) is not allowed, although these three (equally constructed) sentences semantically correspond to the examples in (36a–c):Footnote ¹²

1. (38)

   1. (a) *A sense became in him that he was being watched. (constructed)

   2. (b) *A tension became in their relationship that wouldn't go away. (constructed)

   3. (c) *At that time, an internal struggle between Julius Caesar and Gnaeus Pompeius Magnus became in Rome. (constructed)Footnote ¹³

Finally, let us consider the position of postverbal nouns and locatives. According to Milsark (Reference Milsark1979), there constructions with non-be verbs are classified into two types: the inside verbal, as in (39a), and the outside verbal, as in (39b). In the inside verbal, the noun phrase is located immediately following the main verb, while, in the outside verbal, it shows up to the right of the entire verb phrase. Generally, the inside verbal constructions are subject to the more severe restriction on verbs than the outside verbal constructions in that only existence or appearance verbs can occur in the inside verbal, but other types of verbs can participate in the outside verbal.Footnote ¹⁴ For example, the unergative verb swim cannot be used in the inside verbal in (40a).

1. (39)

   1. (a) There began a rainstorm. [inside verbals] (Milsark Reference Milsark1979: 246)

   2. (b) There walked into the bedroom a unicorn. [outside verbals] (ibid.)

2. (40)

   1. (a) *There swam someone carrying a harpoon towards me. [inside verbals]

      (Lumsden Reference Lumsden1988: 39)

   2. (b) There swam towards me someone carrying a harpoon. [outside verbals] (ibid.: 38)

As can be seen from the examples (e.g. (36a–c) and (37a–c)), the verb become can be found in both the inside verbal and the outside verbal. In particular, most of the examples of there sentences with become in the corpora are categorized as inside verbal, which has a very interesting implication for the lexical property of the verb become, which is not an existence or appearance verb per se.

3.5 There sentences with become in the interrogative form

This section investigates the syntactic behavior of there sentences with become, focusing especially on the use of the interrogative form. A large number of previous studies (Aissen Reference Aissen1975; Hannay Reference Hannay1985; Newmeyer Reference Newmeyer1987; Pérez-Guerra Reference Pérez-Guerra1999) have demonstrated that there constructions with non-be verbs are much more severely constrained in syntactic distribution than there constructions with be-verbs. Moreover, studies such as Ross (Reference Ross1974), Lakoff (Reference Lakoff1987) and Yaguchi (Reference Yaguchi2017) have revealed the gradient nature of there constructions with non-be verbs in terms of the availability of syntactic patterns; there constructions show a prototype structure radiating from there constructions with existence verbs to those with manner-of-motion verbs. According to Yaguchi (Reference Yaguchi2017: 140):

For example, consider the interrogative sentences in (41a–c):

1. (41)

   1. (a) Do you remember? Did there hang on the wall a Mexican serape? (Bresnan Reference Bresnan1994: 109)

   2. (b) Did there occur a sudden revolution . . .? (Quirk et al. Reference Quirk, Greenbaum, Leech and Svartvik1985: 1408)

   3. (c) *Did there walk into the room a man with a long blond hair? (Rochemont & Culicover Reference Rochemont and Culicover1990: 132)

Examples (41a–b) with existence or appearance verbs are acceptable, while example (41c) with a manner of motion verb is disallowed.

Based on these findings, let us discuss the syntactic behavior of there sentences with become. This section only focuses on the interrogative form because this sentence type is well attested in natural data. As we can see from (42a–b) and (43a–b), there sentences with become could be used in the interrogative form, implying that the verb become in there constructions denotes the appearance/occurrence of a postverbal noun.

1. (42)

   1. (a) But will there become a point when he begins to feel the heat? (NOW: GB (12–11–24))

   2. (b) And will there become a time when you will cease making fun? (TV: 2015)

2. (43)

   1. (a) Does there become a ripple effect when one part of the industry collapses like this? (WB: spoken)

   2. (b) Does there become a real gray area between those who are involved in pre-interrogations and interrogations when, you know, the army manual field book or even Geneva Conventions say there are certain behaviors allowed during interrogation. (COCA: SPOK)

Moreover, there sentences with become can be embedded in indirect questions headed by whether and if.Footnote ¹⁵

1. (44)

   1. (a) WA's chief health officer Andrew Robertson has powers under the WA Health Act to close schools or curtail mass gatherings, but earlier on Friday he said future plans depended on how the disease developed and whether there became a need to address a specific town or region. (NOW: AU (20–03–07))

   2. (b) Meanwhile, the Saskatchewan government is going to wait and see if there becomes a need for more addictions supports [sic] after marijuana legalization. (NOW: CA (18–10–15))

Thus, there sentences with become could be used in a wide syntactic context. This means that there sentences with become denote the appearance/occurrence of a referent of the subject noun.