Existential clauses

 

The pronoun it is not the only pronoun used as a dummy in English. The spelling there is today used for two different words, one a locative rhyming with dare and meaning "in or at that place" (as in Put it there), and the other a dummy pronoun pronounced unstressed with a reduced vowel. The primary role of the dummy there is to fill the syntactic subject position in clauses like the [b] examples in [26], which are called existential clauses:

 

[26] - - - - BASIC VERSION - - - - - - - - - - - - - - EXISTENTIAL CLAUSE

 

• i. a. [Some keys] were near the safe. - - b. [There] were [some keys] near the safe.

 
• ii. a. [A nurse] was present. - - - - - - - - - b. [There] was [a nurse] present.

 

There is the subject of the existential clauses in [26], just as it is subject in the extraposed subject construction, and similar arguments support this conclusion:

 

• there occupies the basic subject position before the VP;

 
• in subject-auxiliary inversion constructions it occurs after the auxiliary, as in Was there a nurse present?

 

It is significant that there also occurs as subject in interrogative tags, as in:

 

[27] - - There was a nurse present, [wasn't there?]

 

Only pronouns are admissible in a tag like the one here, as we noted in Ch. 9, &2.3. That means we not only know dummy there is a subject, we know it is a pronoun.

 

We will refer to some keys and a nurse in [26.i.b] and [26.ii.b] as displaced subjects. A displaced subject (like an extraposed subject) is not a kind of subject; it's the phrase that corresponds to the subject of the syntactically more basic construction.

18.46 The there of existential sentences differs from there as an introductory adverb in lacking stress, in carrying none of the locative meaning of the place-adjunct there, and in behaving in most ways like the subject of the clause, doubtless reflecting the structural dislocation from the basic clause types:

 

(i) It often determines concord, governing a singular form of the verb (cf 10.34 ff) even when the following 'notional subject' is plural:

 

• There's some people in the waiting room. < informal >

 

occurs alongside:

 

• There are some people in the waiting room.

 

(ii) It can act as subject in yes--no and tag questions:

 

• Is there any more soup? There's nothing wrong, is there?

 

(iii) It can act as subject in infinitive and -ing clauses:

 

• I don't want there to be any misunderstanding.

 
• He was disappointed at there being so little to do.

 
• There having been trouble over this in the past, I wanted to treat the matter cautiously.

Existential clauses

The pronoun it is not the only pronoun used as a dummy in English. The spelling there is today used for two different words, one a locative rhyming with dare and meaning "in or at that place" (as in Put it there), and the other a dummy pronoun pronounced unstressed with a reduced vowel. The primary role of the dummy there is to fill the syntactic subject position in clauses like the [b] examples in [26], which are called existential clauses:

[26] - - - - BASIC VERSION - - - - - - - - - - - - - - EXISTENTIAL CLAUSE

• i. a. [Some keys] were near the safe. - - b. [There] were [some keys] near the safe.

• ii. a. [A nurse] was present. - - - - - - - - - b. [There] was [a nurse] present.

There is the subject of the existential clauses in [26], just as it is subject in the extraposed subject construction, and similar arguments support this conclusion:

• there occupies the basic subject position before the VP;

• in subject-auxiliary inversion constructions it occurs after the auxiliary, as in Was there a nurse present?

It is significant that there also occurs as subject in interrogative tags, as in:

[27] - - There was a nurse present, [wasn't there?]

Only pronouns are admissible in a tag like the one here, as we noted in Ch. 9, &2.3. That means we not only know dummy there is a subject, we know it is a pronoun.

We will refer to some keys and a nurse in [26.i.b] and [26.ii.b] as displaced subjects. A displaced subject (like an extraposed subject) is not a kind of subject; it's the phrase that corresponds to the subject of the syntactically more basic construction.

18.46 The there of existential sentences differs from there as an introductory adverb in lacking stress, in carrying none of the locative meaning of the place-adjunct there, and in behaving in most ways like the subject of the clause, doubtless reflecting the structural dislocation from the basic clause types:

(i) It often determines concord, governing a singular form of the verb (cf 10.34 ff) even when the following 'notional subject' is plural:

• There's some people in the waiting room. < informal >

occurs alongside:

• There are some people in the waiting room.

(ii) It can act as subject in yes--no and tag questions:

• Is there any more soup? There's nothing wrong, is there?

(iii) It can act as subject in infinitive and -ing clauses:

• I don't want there to be any misunderstanding.

• He was disappointed at there being so little to do.

• There having been trouble over this in the past, I wanted to treat the matter cautiously.

A simple diagnostic test that demonstrates that the existential "there" is a pronoun is to show that it can occur as the subject in an interrogative tag. For example:

The existential "there" pronoun has no semantic meaning: it has been bleached of its locative sense. And so, it is a dummy pronoun.

SOURCE #3: In the 2002 reference grammar by Huddleston and Pullum et al., The Cambridge Grammar of the English Language (CGEL), they go into this topic in even more depth, such as in their section "Evidence that subject function is uniquely filled by dummy it and there", on pages 241-3.

A simple diagnostic test that demonstrates that the existential "there" word is a pronoun is to show that it can occur as the subject in an interrogative tag. For example:

The existential "there" pronoun is a dummy semantically: it has been bleached of its locative meaning.

Consider:

• "There was a cat here under the table."

and (ASITEG, page 251),

• "There's a policeman here."

and (2002 CGEL, page 1391),

• "There is nothing there."

• "What is there there?"

• "There is nothing here."

where the above bolded elements are the usual locative words (they are adverbs or intransitive prepositions, depending on your grammar), and they can be in an existential clause without causing conflict with the existential "there" word. This shows that the existential "there" word has been bleached of any locative meaning.

Since the existential "there" word has been bleached of its locative meaning and has been reanalyzed as a pronoun, then, it is a dummy pronoun.

SOURCE #3: In the 2002 reference grammar by Huddleston and Pullum et al., The Cambridge Grammar of the English Language (CGEL), they go into this topic in even more depth, such as in their section "Evidence that subject function is uniquely filled by dummy it and there", on pages 241-3; and in their section "Dummy there vs locative there", on page 1391; and in general, pages 1390-1401.