Re: Odd construct
| From: | Matthew Pearson <matthew.pearson@...> |
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| Date: | Friday, October 12, 2001, 0:43 |
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--- You wrote:
On Thu, 11 Oct 2001, Matthew Pearson wrote:
> There entered a man.
> There appeared a new star on the horizon.
> There came no answer to his question. (cf. "...but answer came there none")
Perhaps "there" is a special subject, or null subject, like
"it".
--- end of quote ---
If you mean the semantically empty "it" found in sentences like "It is raining"
or "It seems that John is sick", then yes. Both are referred to as expletives.
In fact there are some languages (Swedish, I think) where a single element
corresponds to both expletive "it" and expletive "there".
Matt.
Matt Pearson
Department of Linguistics
Reed College
3203 SE Woodstock Blvd
Portland, OR 97202 USA
ph: 503-771-1112 (x 7618)
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