Collins Cobuild

Unit 18
Impersonal subject ‘there’
Main points
You  use  ‘there’  followed  by  a  form  of  ‘be’  and  a  noun  group  to
introduce new information.
You  use  ‘there’  with  a  singular  or  plural  verb,  depending  on
whether the following noun is singular or plural.
You can also use ‘there’ with modals.
1
‘There’ is often an adverb of place.
Are you comfortable there?
The book is there on the table.
You can also use ‘there’ as the impersonal subject of a sentence when
it does not refer to a place. In this case you use ‘there’ to introduce
new information and to focus upon it. After ‘there’ you use a form of
‘be’ and a noun group.
There is work to be done.
There will be a party tonight.
There was no damage.
There have been two telephone calls.
Note that the impersonal subject ‘there’ is often pronounced without

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stress, whereas the adverb is almost always stressed.
2
You use ‘there’ as the impersonal subject to talk about:
• the existence or presence of someone or something
There are two people who might know what happened.
There are many possibilities.
There is plenty of bread.
• something that happens
There was a general election that year.
There’s a meeting every week.
There was a fierce battle.
• a number or amount
There are forty of us, I think.
There is a great deal of anger about his decision.
There were a lot of people camped there.
3
When the noun group after the verb is plural, you use a plural verb.
There are many reasons for this.
There were two men in the room.
You also use a plural verb before phrases such as ‘a number (of)’, ‘a lot
(of)’, and ‘a few (of)’.
There were a lot of people camped there.
There are only a few left.
4
When the noun group after the verb is singular or uncountable, you
use a singular verb.
There is one point we must add here.
There isn’t enough room in here.

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You also use a singular verb when you are mentioning more than one
person  or  thing  and  the  first  noun  after  the  verb  is  singular  or
uncountable.
There was a man and a woman.
There was a sofa and two chairs.
5
You can also use ‘there’ with a modal, followed by ‘be’ or ‘have been’.
There could be a problem.
There should be a change in government.
There can’t have been anybody outside.
There must have been some mistake.
6
In spoken and informal written English, short forms of ‘be’ or a modal
are normally used after ‘there’.
There’s no danger.
There’ll always be a future for music.
I knew there’d be trouble.
There’s been quite a lot of research into it.
I didn’t even know there’d been a murder.
7
You can also use ‘there’ with ‘appear’ or ‘seem’, followed by ‘to be’ or
‘to have been’.
There appears to be a vast amount of confusion on this point.
There don’t seem to be many people on campus.
There seems to have been some carelessness.

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