The English construction there from the point of view of communicative syntax

There does not depend on the nature of the object and is defined through the belt part of the sentence, referring to the subject as the first logical concept. Therefore, it is characteristic that constructions with the subject there in most cases include a belt part, revealing the highly abstract nature of the object. It has been established that in 70% of cases after there the object is abstract (There is some mystery there). In the second case, there carries a very specific semantic and structural-organizational function. So, firstly, it reveals the abstract essence of the subject, concretizing it in spatial coordinates, and secondly, it closes the sentence, presenting it as formally complete. As for temporal correlation, it is achieved by agreement with the predicate, which acts in direct connection with the subject, receiving from him orientation to action.
With this consideration, however, the question of numerical coordination of forms remains open. It is known that the subject and the predicate are equalized by the quantitative form, in connection with which the plural or singular number of the verb-predicate is predetermined by a similar initial form, i.e., the singularity or plurality of the object taken in these constructions for the subject, In constructions with the initial there, the numerical form, as it were, depends on the verb itself, since the object-complement is included in its structure as its nominal part. However, we must not forget about immutability forms of such a subject, which, unlike the pronouns this - that, remains indifferent to the addition of numerical indicators. In this respect, again, some analogy is possible" with the form of Russian sentences for this: in "These will be houses" and "This will be a house", the object reveals the meaning of the immutable subject in terms of its informational certainty. This, in the meaning of the spatial correlative, does not have a plural form and is not equal in the sense under consideration to the concretized naming pronouns these - those (English it is equal to the first meaning under consideration and this - that - this, this , this, that, that are equal to the second).
A similar phenomenon seems to be observed in. constructions with there as the subject. The object included in the compound predicate is not uniform in numerical terms, which is reflected in the different numerical form of the nominal compound predicate conjugated with it in the general structure. It is a single form, which can be represented either in the form of singularity or plurality (There is a house - There are houses there). The subject, being grammatically devoid of numerical endings, formally remains immutable. Nevertheless, when analyzing these constructions not from a grammatical, but from a psychological point of view, there is a certain temptation to consider them as exponents of the subject-predicative structure, in which the subject is a word like a house-house, and the predicate is a verb like Is. However, in this case, we will follow the path of substituting the grammatical meaning with the psychological one and will proceed not from the analysis of linguistic connections, but from the discovery of psychological patterns in the development of the dark and belt parts of the sentence. The point is not in the predicative or postpredicative position of the subject, but in a specific approach to determining the typological essence of the constructed constructions being analyzed. It is known that pronouns like this (like that, those, that) represent one of the most ancient forms of expression and perception of the world. Apparently, constructions with this kind of words reflected some strictly defined type of initial-associative connections, in which the spatial-temporal relationship with the object came from the indicative form, which was revealed through the qualitative essence of the object. It can be assumed that the fixation of this type of connections, built on the local uncertainty of the perceived object in relation to In English, the general type of constructions with a prepositive indicative element was divided into three subtypes: with it, with this - that and with there. Each of them has specific features in the nature of correlation with the object, on which the form of the temporal connection and the type of verb (simple or compound) depend. These considerations are confirmed by a different logical and psychological interpretation of each of the objects under consideration, which not only underlies their formation, expression and functioning, but is the internal impulse that concentrates in itself the various sprouts of their possible evolution. A lot of attention deserves, in particular, the fact of the progressive use in the modern version of the English language in America of the singular form of the predicate after there, independent of the number of objects (There's many houses there), where the subject and predicate (there is) are grammatically closed, forming a numerically indissoluble group.
It seems that this phenomenon depends on the peculiarities of the expression of the quantitative factor by various parts of speech - an adverb and two types of pronouns that act as a subject. It is known that the syntactic pattern of the Indo-European sentence presupposes a nominative, i.e., invariable in the case relation, the form of the subject. Its relative spatial independence from the verb-predicate is caused by the fact that every movement of the latter is given and determined by the subject, and not vice versa.
Thus, the graphic line with which the predicate is usually depicted receives its mobile impulse from the subject, which is not subject to the Case Change. The case, as it were, is projected onto the name from the side of the verb-predicate and therefore manifests itself in the forms following the nominative case. In this regard, the choice of case is determined not by the name, but by the verb, since the case, as is known, conveys relations of spatial order, fixing the change in the position of the object in spatial coordinates in relation to other objects, both nearby and very distant, not named. Naturally, the nominative case in this sense does not repeat the laws of all other indirect cases, representing the initial-initial structure that itself determines the predicate, and, thus, through it, influences the choice of the form of the indirect case. This situation makes us think that the nominative is not a case form, but is an unchangeable initial-nominative structure of the word, which in the formation of the number retains the basic quality of its part of speech. For example, in a plural noun, it conveys a representation of homogeneous objects in terms of their abstract calculus (houses, for example, where each object is repeated as homogeneous: house + house + house + ...) and nothing other than this object,^ form is included. Similarly, the structure of the sentence, which includes the noun as the subject, gives an idea of precisely this nature of the number (Houses are our shelter). Pronouns differ in terms of reflecting quantity. Demonstrative pronouns (this - that), by virtue of their indicative orientation, which goes not to the object, but from the object, repeat the patterns of expression of the plural of nouns, conveying the homogeneity of not named, but only indicated objects. Let's compare the sentences This is a house and These are houses - houses), where objects reveal the spatial-indicative correlation of the subject with their quantitative essence, and at the same time they themselves are included in the group of the predicate. The analogy of the syntactic model with the noun as The subject is also confirmed by the nature of the predicate (with constructions with this-that ), which in both types of sentences is a nominal compound. When the case system is preserved in the language, this type of predicate is subject to case changes within its nominal part (Houses are our shelter, Houses were our shelter, Houses will be our shelter).
The demonstrative pronoun it (this ), in contrast to the pronoun of the type just considered, has a directly opposite spatial orientation - not from the object to the speaker, but from the speaker to the object, which fixes some point in space-time coordinates, turning it into the center of thought. In this respect, the object does not merge with the subject in the sense of determining its numerical form through the number of homogeneous objects (it is the house , it is the houses , these are houses). The subject in its internal content (this) does not convey the homogeneity or heterogeneity of objects, but is a form of expression of the speaker's attitude to the objects of the world around him, in which their number does not affect the essence of the relationship. Naturally, in this case, the language uses the quantitatively immutable pronoun It, which differs from the above pronoun this - that (this, this, this). Characteristically, the predicate in this type of sentence does not include an object in its composition, although the latter is subject to changes in the numerical order that do not affect the subject. Therefore, in numerical terms, the forms it (this) and houses (houses) are not interrelated. Moreover, the verb-predicate also does not depend on the quantitative essence of the object, which once again confirms not a composite, but a simple type of predicate. Comparison of such constructions with similar ones in Russian language allows us to note the case independence of the object. Compare: this is a person, it will be a person, it was a person, these were people where the demonstrative pronoun is correlated with the English it partly in terms of the direction of movement when perceiving an object from the speaker, and these will be people, these were people where these demonstrative pronoun is correlated with the English this -that and reveals a completely different structure of communication, in which there is not only a numerical, but also a case change in the object. Moreover, if the first is directly related to the subject, then the second is determined by projecting predicative connections onto it.
The subject there (there) in its internal content is close to the pronoun it. Like the latter, it fixes the spatial relations going to the object, and is associated in our perception not with the object, but with the spatial assessment that determines it. In this regard, there requires its disclosure and, as a rule, is detailed in the belt part. The predicate, including the nominal part, is modified depending on its quantitative basis: (there) is a house (there ) there is a house or (there) are houses - (there) there are houses. However, the different psychological relationships observed between the subject and the predicate in constructions with it and there (when the predicate is simple in the first and composite in the second) lead to a different type of predicative structure. In English constructions, with the subject it in semantic terms, it remains one-sidedly connected only with the subject, which explains its numerical invariance (everywhere the same form of the third person singular is observed). The modification affects only the time plan (is, was, will be).