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The grammar book teacher course part 65

A new chapter (Chapter 2) introduces readers to foundational grammatical concepts and terminology, and provides a basis of understanding for readers with a limited background in linguistics. | 448 The Grammar Book Here is the tree and the derivation for the second sentence. There are two books on the table. the table output there -pres be two book -pl on the table copy s t with nonreferential there in subject position the person and number of the NP following the verb is copied onto the tense marker there -pres 3 pl be two book -pl on the table morphology There are two books on the table. It is rather strange that the NP following the verb determines the form of the verb in that a basic property of subjects in English is their power to govern the agreement of the verb fhe explanation for this phenomenon is that the noun phrase following the verb would have been the subject of the sentence rather than there had other considerations not intervened. We discuss these other considerations in the Use section in this chapter. For now the point is that the NP following the verb is not an object but rather is notionally although not morphosyntactically the subject.3 Sometimes such an NP is referred to as the logical subject as opposed to the grammatical subject. To make matters more complex there is also considerable variation from speaker to speaker with regard to the form of the verb with many speakers opting for a singular verb when the verb Ls contracted with there no matter what the number of the following noun is. There s problems here. This preference might arise because speakers arc treating nonreferential there as analogous to nonreferential it which is always followed by a singular verb. In other words they are copying the number of there onto the tense instead of the number of the logical subject. Another explanation is that speakers choose the singular form of the verb due to the awkwardness of articulating two consecutive weak syllables with final r sounds which the choice of contracting the plural form of the verb necessitates.1 There re problems here there re 6 Arar It may also be the case that Acre and is have become fused into a single formula .