| 词组 | there |
| 释义 | there Strang 1970 points out that King Alfred, back in the 9th century, could write a sentence (in Old English, of course) "So few of them were." In Old English such a sentence is both meaningful and complete, but it leaves us uncomfortable in modern English. Either some kind of complement is needed to complete the thought—a predicate adjective, perhaps—or a so-called "dummy" or anticipatory subject, there, is needed to help make the word order idiomatic: "There were so few of them." The use of there (and of it, which is similarly used) as a dummy subject has long been established in the language. It first came under examination by the 18th-cen-tury rhetoricians and grammarians who busied themselves with trying to rationalize the language to their own taste. At least one of them appears to have come across there as a dummy subject and to have decided that it was a weak way to begin a sentence. We assume this because the topic turned up in Lindley Murray 1795, which was patched together out of the work of a number of predecessors. Murray termed this use "an expletive," and he mildly disapproved it except where it gave "a small degree of emphasis." But in another section of Murray's own book we find this: • There is often a peculiar neatness, in beginning a sentence with the conjunctive form of the verb. You can see how insidious the dummy subject is. Even its critics can easily fail to notice it in their own works. The topics written about by Murray and his predecessors have often had long lives, and there is no exception. Bernstein 1971 and Copperud 1970, 1980 tell us that at one time sentences beginning with there were frequently criticized as weak (recent evidence is that such criticism is still widespread today). Both dismiss the complaint, citing frequent use in literature and the several necessary functions of the construction. Both warn, however, against using too many sentences beginning with there. In an article appearing in Written Communication for July 1988, Thomas N. Huckin and Linda Hutz Pesante investigate the use of there as dummy subject, calling it "existential there." They decided to test the common handbook warning not to begin sentences with there against a 100,000-word sample of good writing by what they call "expert" writers. Their survey found the construction very common; the expert writers obviously paid no attention to the handbook prohibition. They found there sentences used for four chief purposes: to assert existence, to present new information, to introduce topics, and to summarize. Clearly, then, there sentences are often highly useful, and they seem to occur with roughly the same frequency at all levels of discourse. Huckin and Pesante conclude that there is no empirical justification for a handbook rule prohibiting them. Huckin and Pesante further suggest sensibly that genuine overuse of there-sentences may reflect some fault— such as making too many shifts of topic—that should be dealt with in terms of the entire piece of writing rather than individual sentences. The construction itself is impeccable, however. See also their 1; there is, there are; |
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