There have continued to do~

Question

Over the past few years, nonetheless, there have continued to be some modest declines in constant-dollar defense spending, but the level have still not gone below what they were in the 1970's, and Congress added several billion in the frenetic final budget bargaining in October 1998.
<Source: Misreading the Public: The Myth of a New Isolationism by Steven Kull,I. M. Destler>
http://books.google.co.kr/books?id=QWgaWFyaTVYC&pg=PA20&lpg=PA20&dq=%22there+have+continued+to%22&source=bl&ots=UJ_R4mZbpq&sig=_8k4NGgcbStH6yEf-SffmnoxJCk&hl=ko&sa=X&ei=u7BRVPXzHIjW8gXaxYLQDQ&ved=0CDEQ6AEwAw#v=onepage&q=%22there%20have%20continued%20to%22&f=false

I'd like to know whether I should take it that in the underlined 'there' clause, "to be some modes declines" is the noun phrase subject, not the object of "have continued."

Thank you in advance for your help.

GPY · Accepted Answer

One can say that "some modest declines" (not "to be some modest declines") is the subject. The "there..." structure expresses existence, similar to "there are some modest declines", but with the more elaborate "have continued to be" replacing "are".

Park sang joon · Answer

Thank you, GPY, for your precis and very helpful answer.

Are there any other phrases to take the place of the verb 'be' in 'there' clauses?

GPY · Answer

A variety of other combinations ending in "to be" or "to have been" are possible, such as "there appear to be ...", "there were rumoured to be ...", "there came to be ...", "there will turn out to be ...", and so forth.

Some other main verbs will work, such as "there came ...", "there appeared ..." or "there arose ...". These tend to be formal-sounding (at least, the ones that I can think of offhand).

Park sang joon · Answer

Thank you, GPY, for your elaborate and detailed answer.

at least, the ones that I can think of offhand

I don't think there are some more.

There have continued to do~

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