There

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Pronunciation

UK: strong form /ðeə/, There's /ðeəz/, There are /ðerə/
US: strong form /ðɜr/, There's /ðɜrz/, There are /ðɜrər/

NB: identical to the pronunciation of there and they're. This is terribly inefficient and makes learning difficult, but what can you do? That's the way the language is!

Existential

In the following patterns: s indicates any plural noun. (i.e. including irregular ones like people, children, data, alumni, etc., ...

Present (Simple)

  • There is      an   . . .       in the fridge.
  • There are      . . .s       in the soup.
  • There isn't any       . . .       in the soup. uncountable nouns
  • There isn't      an   . . .       in the toolbox.
  • There aren't any       . . . s       in the freezer. countable nouns

Present Perfect (Simple)

  • There has been a change of plans.
  • There haven't been any changes here for years.
  • There haven't been many calls this morning.

Past (Simple)

  • There was       a problem       with the file.
  • There were       mistakes       in the file.
  • There wasn't any       . . .       left. uncountable nouns
  • There weren't any       . . . s      in the building. countable nouns

Past Perfect (Simple)

  • There hadn't been much interest in the product until the company began to market it more aggressively.

Future and other modalities

The dedicated modal verbs (invariable)

  • There will be       an   . . .       next week.
  • There will be       . . . s       later this week.
  • There won't be       an   . . .       until next week.
  • There won't be       . . . s       in the room.


  • There would be only Queen of England during his lifetime, as it turned out. future in the past
  • There would be time to finish, if we didn't have that meeting. irrealis
  • There would have been time to finish, if we hadn't had that meeting. (counterfactual


  • There may be a few things we need to clear up from the last meeting before we start. Let's go over the minutes quickly to see if there are any questions.
  • There may not be enough time to walk.
  • There may have been some confusion.
  • There might not have been any review of the account.

Cf. should, can, could, must...

Other modal verb structures (variable / requiring do-support)

  • There used to be a shop where you could buy fancy soap & bath-bubbles here.
  • There didn't use to be a charge for kids.
  • There has to be a reason.
  • There have to be other solutions.
  • There doesn't have to be conflict over this issue.

Use with the present participle

be +-ing is incompatible with There + be. The present participle does not move to the front to accompany "There".

  • There were waiting four people.
  • There were [four people waiting].
  • There have been waiting four people all morning.
  • There have been [four people waiting] all morning.
  • There was being interviewed a minister about reform on TV.
  • There was [a minister being interviewed about reform] on TV.
  • There is being done cleaning.
  • There is [cleaning being done].
  • Is there [cleaning being done]?

be +-ing is also incompatible with the fronted locative structure.

  • There came were coming three ships...
  • There goes is going the bus.

Passive voice

Like the present participle, the past participle generally does not appear in the matrix "there be" clause:

  • There are finished five articles.
  • There are [five articles finished].

However, certain passive structures associated with allegations and epistemic questions *are* common.

  • There were said to be a lot of concerns with the new policy.
  • There are thought to be as many as 750 people living in the camp.
  • There are reported to have been hundreds of complaints.
  • Are there known to be any secondary effects from this medication?

Locative

A location a distance away from the speaker & listener. The opposite of here.

Idiomatic

Comfort

  • There, there, don't cry.

Famous uses

There is no there, there. (Gertrude Stein is famous for this sentence about her native Oakland. She said it about going back to her native Oakland, because she no longer knew many people in a city that had changed since her youth (not least by her home having been torn down). Ishmael Reed responded on the there-thereness of his Oakland (§). Later, in the 2016 elections, this became the mantra of the media / political class dealing with the many leaks during the 2016 elections: but it had come to be synonymous with "big nothing-burger", which originated in the same quarters. It's not clear if "There is no there, there" was meant to mean "There is no smoking gun, there" or "There is no context there, there in that email dump"

Wikipedians even have a policy (NOTHERE) by this name that can be cited when blocking people from editing the encyclopedia that anyone can edit. It is generally parsed as "Not here" rather than "No there".

Humorous add-on to demonstrative determiners

From dialectal (non-standard) English, forms a contrastive pair with "here" to indicate proximity or distance. '

  • "That there" NOUN vs. "this here" NOUN
  • "them there" NOUNs vs. "these here" NOUNs