there is

Question

Hello, everyone.What's the subject in the following sentence,There is a woman on the balcony.Is it there, or a woman?Thank you.

Tamguatlay · Accepted Answer

woman

Surfer · Answer

tamguatlaywoman

Thank you.

And ..is a woman on the balcony is the inverted form of
a woman on the balcony is,

right?

Tamguatlay · Answer

Wrong.

Anonymous · Answer

There is a woman on the balcony.

The dummy pronoun There is the subject.

You can tell this because it inverts with the verb to form a question:

Is there a woman on the balcony?

Ozzourti · Answer

AnonymousThe dummy pronoun There is the subject.

If the word "there" were the real subject, it would almost invariably have to be followed by a singular verb. Yet we can say:

There is a woman on the balcony.
Is there a woman on the balcony?
There are three women on the balcony.
Are there any women on the balcony?

Even though "there" stands in the subject position, it is not the true subject of the sentence in question. The number of the verb is governed by the noun that follows.

You may be confusing "there" with "it." (The latter is often used as a meaningless subject.)

It has been four years since they broke up.
It is his friends who are responsible for this.

Anonymous · Answer

ozzourti: If the word "there" were the real subject, it would almost invariably have to be followed by a singular verb. Yet we can say: There is a woman on the balcony. Is there a woman on the balcony? There are three women on the balcony. Are there any women on the balcony?

Here's how it works: in existential clauses like these, the primary role of the dummy pronoun there is to fill the syntactic subject position. Compare:

1. Several windows were open.
2. There were several windows open.

In 1. the basic version, several windows is clearly the subject. In 2. the existential version, several windows is a displaced subject functioning as a complement of the verb, but it's not the syntactic subject, though it corresponds semantically to the subject in the basic version.

ozzourti: even though "there" stands in the subject position, it is not the true subject of the sentence in question. The number of the verb is governed by the noun that follows.

Dummy there is an unusual kind of subject: it has no inherent number but takes on the number of the displaced subject, which explains why it can be used with both singular and plural verbs. In other words, dummy there can be singular or plural. The number of the verb is indeed determined by the number of the noun phrase that follows it, but that does not mean that the NP is the subject. Thus, although the noun phrase "three women" in your third example happens to be plural, that does not mean it is the subject.

As I said before, further evidence that there is the subject is provided by the inversion test to establish a subject. Compare:

Anna is on the balcony.
Is Anna on the balcony?

There is a woman on the balcony.
Is there a woman on the balcony?

In the first pair, Anna is clearly the subject, it occupies the basic position before the verb and it inverts with the verb to form an interrogative. Only subjects can do that. It's the same with the second pair. In the first example, there is located before the verb, as one would expect of a subject - in the second, it inverts in the normal way with the verb to form a question, and thus must be the subject.

Finally, there occurs as subject in interrogative tags, just as dummy it does:

There was a witness present, wasn't there?
It was an awful shame, wasn't it?

Only pronouns are admissible in tags like this, so we not only know that both dummy it and there are subjects, we know they're both pronouns.

Fivejedjon · Answer

A further argument for there being the subject of the verb is provided by sentences such as There was an explosion (in the factory yesterday). There is no equivalent version *An explosion was in the factory yesterday)..

Ozzourti · Answer

Nice explanation, Anon, but I'm not convinced.

In my opinion, "there" is simply a stand-in for the actual subject. You yourself said that noun that follows is the displaced subject (with which I can agree), so are you implying that there are two subjects in such a short sentence? While I agree that "there" fills the syntactic subject position, I can't really say it does more than that.

CalifJim · Answer

SurferWhat's the subject in the following sentence,There is a woman on the balcony.Is it there, or a woman?

The "existential there" construction has two candidates for subject.

1. For purposes of subject-verb inversion to form a question, "there" is the subject.

There are many kinds of disasters. > Are there many kinds of disasters?

2. For purposes of subject-verb agreement, "there" is not the subject. The subject follows the verb.

There are many kinds of disasters.
There is only one kind of disaster.

(I don't think anything of any importance hinges on which is the "real" subject.)

CJ

Surfer · Answer

Thank you, all.

I myself - though not sure - think that that sentence is simply an inverted form of the version in which the adverb is brought to the front:

He is Happily
Adverb brought to the beginning: Happily he is ->Inverted: Happily is he

A woman is there
Adverb brought to the beginning: there a woman is ->Inverted: there is a woman (typical, everyday form)

That, plus restriction imposed by the inherent adverbial nature of the word there's semantics, on regarding it as a subject (or an object, for that matter).

So, the verb to be in there is a woman is not defining or transforming there by/into a woman (which is imposible), but rather means something like exist or live, which meaning is modified by the adverb there.

Still not sure though

there is

Top answer

Get the Weekly English Kit 📬

Related Questions