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I came across a sentence:

There is expected to be an improvement in the transportation system in that town.

The term: there is expected to be sounded strange to me. Is it grammatically correct? If so, what are the other ways to express the same idea ?

Vi Kiet Tieu
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  • "There" is the raised subject of the first "be", but "an improvement ..." is the displaced subject of the second "be", just as in the simpler construction "there will be an improvement ...". The embedded "be" clause is an existential even though "there" does not appear as subject of that clause but is located higher in the constituent structure of the sentence. – BillJ Nov 03 '18 at 16:55

2 Answers2

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Yes, “there is expected to be” is grammatically correct. Other ways of saying the same thing include:

We expect there to be

We think there will be

There should be

Community
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APthree
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  • There is expected to be an improvement in the transportation system in that town.

As usual, this sentence has been done many things to.
Unpeeling them one by one, this sentence is the result of A-Raising on

  • For there to be an improvement in the transportation system in that town is expected.

which is the result of Passive on

  • *[Someone] expects [for] there to be an improvement in the transportation system in that town.

which is the result of There-Insertion on

  • [Someone] expects [for] an improvement in the transportation system in that town to be.

which is the result of not dropping the final, unnecessary, and irrelevant infinitive with complementizer to be, like the initial, unnecessary, and irrelevant complementizer
for was deleted, as in

  • [Someone] expects an improvement in the transportation system in that town.
John Lawler
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