there there

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woodcutter
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there there

Post by woodcutter » Thu May 07, 2009 3:45 am

What kind of a word is "there"? Most dictionaries seem to list it (in time honoured nonsensical any old rubbish category tradition) as an adverb, but it generally does the work of a prepositional phrase, replacing "in/at/on that place". (Which is why you can't say "Do you like there?")

Is there a word for that? A prep-noun?

"There, I did it!" seems to have an interjection-like "there"

but how about "There is where I disagree"? Is it then a pronoun?

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ouyang
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Post by ouyang » Sat May 09, 2009 2:22 pm

It's usually an adverb of place or a pronoun. The existential there http://www.ucl.ac.uk/internet-grammar/minor/exist.htm is used as an expletive expression. I would say it forms a disjunctive adverb rather than an interjection in your example, but there's not much difference between the two classifications.

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