Cambridge Grammar of English Hardback with cd-rom a comprehensive Guide

Existential there

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Existential there makes possible an optional (and often preferred) variant of

clauses with an indefinite subject. The pattern enables focus to be placed on the

subject by locating it in the rheme of the clause instead of its usual position as the

theme:

[talking about visiting a house with a view to buying it]

We drove past it one time and 

there was 

a woman standing outside

, she said,

‘Oh what do you want?’ I said, ‘Oh, well, we’ve come to see the house.’

With verbs other than be, the there construction is confined to formal/literary

styles:

A few days after that meeting with Lucian, 

there came

the letter

.

All signs of the market had vanished and in its place in front of the squat town

hall, 

there stood

only a platform

.