本文系统地梳理了英语存在句和汉语存在句国内外研究现状，并从宏观和微观角度，指出英汉语存在句对比研究现存问题。由此，基于系统功能语言学框架，本文发现：意义上，英汉语存在句都表达存在过程，建构存在情形，涉及位置、过程和存在方三个基本语义成分；形式上，二者语义成分的基本配置方式不同。英语存在句通常呈现“There + 过程 + 存在方 + 位置”形式，而汉语一般呈现“位置 + 过程 + 存在方”的形式。总的来说，英汉民族都认识到“某地存在某物”这样的情形，但是二者感知方式不同，英语倾向于先物后处所，汉语则倾向于先处所后物，最终导致存在情形的体现形式有别。

This paper firstly reviews existing studies on English and Chinese existential clauses at home and abroad. Secondly, it points out problems of contrastive studies between English and Chinese existential clauses at the macro and micro levels. Thirdly, based on the framework of Systemic Functional Linguistics, the paper finds that at the meaning level, existential clauses in English and Chinese both express existential processes, and thus construct existential situations, which involve three basic semantic components: Location, Process and Existent. However, the configurations of these components in the two languages are different. In English, the typical configuration is: There + Process + Existent + Location, while in Chinese, the typical one is: Location + Process + Existent. This remarkable difference lies in that the English and Chinese people experience existential situations in different ways: the English people tend to recognize the Existent firstly and then the Location, whereas the Chinese people recognize the Location firstly. As a result, the different ways of cognition lead to distinct realizations of existential situations in the two languages.