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Is

In the park is a tree.

grammatical as

In the park there is a tree.

? Moreover, how about inaccusative verbs like:

In the park sits a dog.

?

Thanks for any help.

Anton Maria Prati
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  • It's okay, but I wouldn't say it's idiomatic. – Azor Ahai -him- Oct 02 '17 at 22:31
  • You don't give an example containing locative there. – Edwin Ashworth Oct 02 '17 at 23:16
  • The "there" in your example is not locative, but existential, cf "There (existential) is a sheep over there" (locative). – BillJ Oct 03 '17 at 08:16
  • So as to clarify: "In the park there is a tree." shows a locative and an existential marker, while "In the park is a tree." shows a locative, only. Is it to say that "In the park Ø is a tree." is simply a different syntax for "In the park there is a tree." with the existential category silenced? – Anton Maria Prati Oct 03 '17 at 14:26
  • "In the park is a tree" has the preposition phrase "in the park" as a locative complement, and "a tree" as subject. "In the park there is a tree", has the same locative PP, but the subject is the existential "there". Nothing is "silenced", as you put it -- they are just two different constructions where the meaning is the same. The first example has subject-auxiliary inversion and in the second the locative complement is preposed to a position before the subject. The 'basic' versions would be "A tree is in the park" and "There is a tree in the park". – BillJ Oct 03 '17 at 15:01
  • Anton, you're over-complicating something much more simple.

    Could you re-phrase your Question cover what's left, if you first accept that all three examples are wholly acceptable?

     – Robbie Goodwin Oct 03 '17 at 23:06
  • BillJ, thank you. Just as to clarify, by taking "A tree is in the park" and "There is a tree in the park" as a model, are "A tree is there" as well as "There is a tree there" both grammatical? – Anton Maria Prati Oct 03 '17 at 23:34
  • Robbie, I guess I wasn't taking inversion into account. I would say I supposed that the absence of "there" was caused by the presence of the locative in the same position. – Anton Maria Prati Oct 03 '17 at 23:38
  • You can use this kind of inversion with verbs like "sit" also; the following question is relevant: Can the subject go at the end of a clause? – herisson Oct 04 '17 at 19:39
  • Thank you, sumelic. All the inaccusative verbs, I suppose? – Anton Maria Prati Oct 05 '17 at 20:40

1 Answers1

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http://www.thefreedictionary.com/prepositional+phrase

The definition of a prepositional phrase seems to preclude its use as the subject of a verb :-

"as an adjective modifying a noun in the sentence, or as an adverb modifying a verb, adjective, or adverb in the sentence".

But, to me, your example, "In the park is a tree" sounds quite correct.

Nigel J
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    It's not the subject: it's a complement. The subject is still "A tree" (To see this, compare "In the park are many trees".) – Colin Fine Oct 02 '17 at 22:44
  • Right. Locative predicates can exchange subject and complement positions around the be auxiliary. But the there of In the park there is a tree is not a locative there, but a dummy there inserted by a rule called, with no irony at all, "There-Insertion". – John Lawler Oct 02 '17 at 23:19
  • @ John Lawler So the position of the phrase has no bearing on the grammar ? 'In the park is a tree,' is, grammatically, absolutely equivalent to, 'a tree is in the park' ? – Nigel J Oct 02 '17 at 23:26
  • Does it mean that existential "there" can be silenced when a sentence starts with a locative (In the same way as "There[loc] there[exi] is a tree" would sound odd)? – Anton Maria Prati Oct 03 '17 at 14:28