Teacher Discussion Forums

Many grammarians would say that the syntactic function of "there" in such sentences as below is as a "dummy - or empty-there. Do you agree?

"There is a man named Bill Jones waiting to see you. "

Yes, it is certainly dummy. The speaker would not point to the person. "There" is not used in opposition to "here".

Note also that "It is.." is also often dummy.

Andrew Patterson.

I think I see where you are getting at. 'There' is not a pronoun so where is the subject?

Other languages such as Catalan use the same construction ("N'hi ha" or "Hi es") , but the pronoun subject is normally missed out in these cases.

The subject should strictly be considered what comes afterwards (which explains why we say "there is a car" but "there are some cars"). The fact that "there is" is sometimes used even for the plural confuses matters.

"It" is, as Andrew says, the dummy subject, in English.

Perhaps it would be better to think of matters in terms of theme and focus. The sentence
Six students are in the room
has the theme six students, and the focus (new information) that they are in the room.
Tne sentence There are six students in the room
has a dummy theme, and the focus that six students are in the room.

I have folks telling me it is a pronoun and acting as a subject when together with "is". ???

I have others , namely those who see existential modality at work, telling me it is not a "dummy", it acts as a modal indicant when together with "is" and points to the existential status of the subject of the sentence.

How confusing!

Existential modal interpretation:

"There is a fly in the singer's mouth", talks aout the modal state of the singer's mouth.

"There is a tree in the garden", talks about the state of the garden and not the tree.

it is said that we apply "there is " quite consciously so as to avoid the confusionof sentences like:

A fly is in the singer's mouth.


But all this is over my tired head.

Focus (as SJ said) must have a lot to do with it - sentences like "A fly is in the singer's mouth" sound too "elicited" to me (e.g. "Describe what you see in this picture" tests); the "A" and "in" might become too stressed, whereas what is important - "a FLY", linked without an intervening verb to "IN THE SINGER'S MOUTH" (!!) - is in danger of getting "lost".

This reminds me of that (in)famous scene in Raiders of the Lost Ark, but I doubt if we'd use "Dummy" or "Existential there" here...hmm, yes, how would you describe the legendary "method" acting of Paul Freeman?!