What is "That?"

Question

Hello,"In a hole in the ground there lived a hobbit."I am trying to understand the function of the word "there." I believe it is acting as an adverb in this instance; but what would lead me to believe that it is functioning as a pronoun is the fact that there seems to be a connection between it and the preceding prepositional phrases. If "there" is an adverb, then it means "in that place." Substituting this into the sentence, we get"In a hole in the ground in that place lived a hobbit."Although this is cumbersome to read, I think it reveals that, in some sense, the word "there" relates back to the previous prepositional phrase. However, know I am having some difficulty with what "that place" indicates. Can more than one word serve as a pronoun? Would "that place" serve as a pronoun, with the antecedent "a hole in the ground?"I am hoping someone could clarify this for me.

AlpheccaStars · Accepted Answer

BashyboyI am hoping someone could clarify this for me.

This is called the "existential there." There is a pronoun, not an adverb, used as a place-holder in the grammatical subject position. It is commonly used with "be" but can also be used with other intransitive verbs:

eg. There are two lazy red apples on the table. ( The subject is "apples.")

In a more poetic phrasing, the adverb phrase can be placed at the beginning of the sentence. Note that I have replaced "be" with another intransitive verb:

On the table there rest two lazy red apples.

Read more here: http://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/there#Pronoun

Here is a quote from a linguistic discussion, comparing the existential construction with the similar presentational construction:
http://english.stackexchange.com/questions/159239/which-verbs-apart-from-the-pure-copula-follow-the-existential-there

In form, the presentational construction uses the dummy pronoun "there" as subject but some other verb than "be" as the main verb. E.g. "There remain only two further issues to discuss"; "There seems little doubt that the fire was started deliberately."

Some verbs (and verbal idioms) in this construction are: appear, arise, arrive, develop, emerge, enter, escape, follow, grow, lie, live, loom, occur, persist, sit, spring up, sprout, stand. Many of these verbs have to do with being in a position or coming into view.

Most presentational clauses are of the bare type or have a locative extension. (But there are exceptions, e.g. "There remain only two further issues to discuss."; "There remained only two officers alive.)

There are some differences in pragmatic constraints between presentationals and existentials. One difference is that definite noun phrases occur more readily as the "displaced subject" in presentationals than in existentials.

What is "That?"

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