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The English verb "there be" in its various forms "there were," "there is," "there are," "there will be," etc. are equivalent to the Spanish verb "haber" in its forms "hubo," "hay," "habrá," etc.

Technically, when used in this way, "there" is an adverb (some say it is a noun or expletive, but I disagree). But "there" is also an adverb with an entirely different meaning and, for at least some native speakers, a different pronunciation when used to designate location: "We went there for our honeymoon."

So is "there be" classified as a phrasal verb of the form "adverb + verb"?

ADDENDUM: Does anyone know when this form arose in English?

John Wayland Bales
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  • So are you really asking about the difference between there are several definitions and You can sit there? – marcellothearcane Jul 25 '19 at 18:06
  • @marcellothearcane When used with the verb to be, there does not designate location. In "there are" and "over there" the two theres appear to be homographs--two words spelled the same but with different meanings and (at least in some locations) different pronunciations. – John Wayland Bales Jul 25 '19 at 18:34
  • Possible duplicate of What part of speech is “there” when used in “There is (blah blah)”? (and essentially, this is nothing like a 'phrasal verb' by any of the various definitions sometimes thought to be the only correct ones). – Edwin Ashworth Jul 25 '19 at 18:36
  • @EdwinAshworth Thank you for the link. I did not find it in my search. I suppose the pronoun designation is better than some others. But its correspondence in Spanish to the verb haber bends me toward considering "there be" to be a verb in its own right, just as "haber, ser, estar" are separate verbs in Spanish. – John Wayland Bales Jul 25 '19 at 18:42
  • Apparently, Spanish tolerates 'subjectless sentences' (or perhaps haber 'fuses' subject and verb). This doesn't happen in English. // Note that John Lawler argues that 'pronoun' is indeed a wrong classification here, but says that 'dummy' is perhaps the only realistic label. tchrist has tried to get him to admit that he's proposing its part of speech is n/a. – Edwin Ashworth Jul 25 '19 at 18:51
  • I don't know why you think "there be" is a verb, nor why you say that "there" is an adverb. Existential "there" is a dummy pronoun that typically functions as subject (or raised object), as in "There was a nurse present". Historically, dummy "there" derives from the locative there , e.g. "Don't leave your shoes there". By contrast, locative "there" as in "Your book is over there" is an intransitive preposition. And as you suggest, there is a difference in the pronunciation. Note that even if existential "there" were an adverb "there be" would hardly be a phrasal verb. – BillJ Jul 25 '19 at 18:53
  • @BillJ Well, it's certainly not locative. And whether adverb or pronoun, combinations such as "there are" appear to express a single thought, so I ponder whether "there" and "are" should be separated in determining parts of speech and whether this should be considered a verbal phrase. The fact that there are different opinions of the function of the word when it is separated from "are" suggests that there is something worth reconsidering. When and why did English change from "Dragons are there" to "There are dragons there." Why did it become useful to put in the extra "there"? – John Wayland Bales Jul 25 '19 at 19:23
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    Note that you can also say There are dragons here. The locative sense is still barely evident, in that many locative verbs can occur with there-insertion (There stands/lies/occupies/extends/ ...), but that's all. The there of there-insertion is a gear in the machinery, not a lexical item with a meaning. As such, it's got no part of speech except its function, which is dummy subject, a role forced on it by the vagaries of English syntax. Incidentally, as I originally pointed out on the post that's supposedly a duplicate answer here, the accepted answer, though protected, is total BS. – John Lawler Jul 25 '19 at 19:49
  • Evidence for dummy "there" being a pronoun comes from the fact that it functions only as subject or raised object, and can fill the subject position in interrogative tags, as in "There was a nurse present, wasn't there? It's significant that only pronouns are admissible in a tag like that one. (Btw, examples with "there" and verbs other than "be" are called presentationals, e.g "There remain only two further issues to discuss"). – BillJ Jul 25 '19 at 21:24
  • We're regressing back to the very, very bad old days when things continuously got closed as dupes of unrelated questions. – Araucaria - Him Jul 25 '19 at 21:44

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