[3]Similarly to French il y a, in Chinese the existential verb yǒu (have) is often used as a presentative to introduce new entities into discourse: Kàn!LookYǒuPRESTTrénpeopletōustealnǐdeyourmiànbāo!.bread.Kàn!
[4]In Maybrat, a likely language isolate of West Papua, there is a dedicated presentative prefix me- which combines with demonstratives.
This contrast is illustrated in the following three examples with the demonstrative -to, which is used for non-masculine referents close to the speaker:[5] m-amaU-comeme-toPRESTT-DEM(presentative) m-ama me-toU-come PRESTT-DEM'Here she comes.
'[7]faiwomanre-toSPEC-DEM(attributive) fai re-towoman SPEC-DEM'this woman'[8]Special word order configurations can also be used to introduce foregrounded entities into discourse, that is, to realise a presentational function.
In the following spoken Chinese sentence, the agent of the motion verb lái (come), which usually occupies the preverbal position, occurs after the verb because it denotes a discourse-new entity: NèiThattiāndaytúránjiānsuddenlyne,PAUSlái-lecome-PFVhǎoxiē-gequite.a.few-CLfēijī.airplane.Nèi tiān túránjiān ne, lái-le hǎoxiē-ge fēijī.That day suddenly PAUS come-PFV quite.a.few-CL airplane.Lit: ' Suddenly that day, came quite a few airplanes.'