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Perfect Stranger Posted 12 years ago
Grammar

Grammar question no. 51: there + said to be vs have

Dear All,

I'm just looking at this sentence and keep wondering why the answer it what it is. I can feel why the answer is correct but I can't explain it in terms of grammar rules...

There ______ on the Moon.

a) is said to be no life

I know we could rephrase this sentence and say:

The moon is said to have no life(forms)

How come we can't say:

There is said to have no life on the Moon

(I know it's wrong, I just want to know why it's wrong)

Thanks

Cheers
  

Top answer

Perfect Stranger There is said to have no life on the Moon The combination there + have is wrong. Preparatory there is almost always followed by to be, or its various forms: There is no life on the moon. There are no cars in the street.

— Cool Breeze

  • Perfect Stranger There is said to have no life on the Moon The combination there + have is wrong.
  • Preparatory there is almost always followed by to be, or its various forms: There is no life on the moon.
  • There are no cars in the street.
  • There'll be problems if you go on like that!
  • Sometimes other verbs are used, especially exist , which means more or less the same as be: There existed a number of differences between them.
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5 Answers
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Perfect StrangerThere is said to have no life on the Moon
The combination there + have is wrong. Preparatory there is almost always followed by to be, or its various forms:

There is no life on the moon.
There are no cars in t
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Normally it's
[thing] is said to have/be

but perhaps it's best to think of "there is said to be/have been" simply as a special expression for "it is said somewhere there is/has been" or similar.

d
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Thanks guys...

So the fact that have/has can't be used in such a way has nothing to do with the subject of the sentence?
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Hope someone can answer to my last post. Thanks.
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X There is said to have no life on the Moon.

It is wrong because "there" is not a subject. It is a placeholder for the real subject, which cannot be found in this ungrammatical sentence.
See entry #7
http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/t
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