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I came across an instance of English that perplexes me.

Saying (perhaps, in answer to a question, "what's in the town?") "There is a supermarket." versus "A supermarket is there."

It seems to me the former is perhaps the more natural response, but both are grammatically acceptable, and both contain the necessary information. What's the difference between them?

KillingTime
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Les
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    "A supermarket is there" is Indian English, and I think there is an explanation for why that word order is used. Where did you come across this? – Heartspring Dec 11 '23 at 23:39
  • What's in the town? A supermarket. – Weather Vane Dec 11 '23 at 23:40
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    @Heartspring: Are you sure? I got no hits from a site-specific search for "A supermarket is there" on The Times of India, but I got 7 matches for "There is a supermarket". – FumbleFingers Dec 12 '23 at 00:10
  • @FumbleFingers - I meant the construction, not the phrase itself. TOI is pretty nicely edited; Indian languages put "there is/are" at the ends of sentences, which is then loan translated into English. – Heartspring Dec 12 '23 at 00:13
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    @Heartspring: Hmm. "Pretty nicely edited"? I just got 207 hits from the site-specific search for *are having a problem* on the India Times, which is close to the 219 hits on the London Times. But the London Times has 21.8K hits for *have a problem, whereas the India times has only 13.7K hits for that. The absolute numbers there are big enough that there's obviously still a significant* difference with use of the progressive for stative verbs, editorial policy notwithstanding. – FumbleFingers Dec 12 '23 at 00:31
  • Conversation between two people: "Well, it was a garage. But now, a supermarket is there." It astounds me that posters here sometimes miss the pragmatic boat... So, it really depends on how and when you "came across it". It can be perfectly acceptable. – Lambie Dec 13 '23 at 15:56
  • @Lambie "Well, it was a garage. But now, a supermarket is there." <-- That doesn't work for me! Maybe it's an Aussie thing? – Araucaria - Him Dec 13 '23 at 16:49
  • @Araucaria-Him Not Aussie. Just English. – Lambie Dec 13 '23 at 21:00
  • @Heartspring even with Indian English, it feels unusual. It should have been "the supermarket is there" (say, when a real estate agent is showing you around: "the park's there [pointing in one direction], the supermarket there [pointing in another direction], and the bus stop over there [yet another direction]"). – muru Dec 14 '23 at 08:09
  • I'd point at a bird and say "there is a bird.", I'd point at a bush and say "A bird is there." – civitas Dec 14 '23 at 18:37

2 Answers2

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So let's take a look at this sentence:

There's a supermarket there.

This sentence, of course, doesn't mean "A supermarket is there there," which wouldn't make any sense. This is because the two theres in that sentence are playing different roles. The first there is a dummy there; it's just a marker used as a subject, here in the so-called "existential construction." The second there is a locative there, referring to a particular place (Huddleston & Pullum (2002), p. 1391).

Note that we can usually replace the locative there with "in that place," since the two mean roughly the same thing: "There's a supermarket in that place" means roughly the same thing as "There's a supermarket there." But the dummy there often can't: "In that place is a supermarket there" is unidiomatic and would likely mean something different.

Notably, a dummy there can only ever be a subject (or "raised object"; ibid., p. 1391). So, in "A supermarket is there," the there can only be a locative there. But, in "There is a supermarket," the there is likely to be interpreted as a dummy there. In other words, only "A supermarket is there" unambiguously specifies the actual location of the supermarket; "There is a supermarket" just asserts that the supermarket exists.

In the context you specify, the two mean roughly the same thing. "There is a supermarket" would be interpreted as "There is a supermarket in the town." "A supermarket is there" would be interpreted as "A supermarket is in the town." Those two, of course, amount to the same thing, since both assert the existence of a supermarket located in the town.

However, in English (as a general rule) we tend to prefer to put new information later in a clause than old information (ibid., p. 1372). Since "a supermarket" is introducing a new entity into the discourse, "There is a supermarket" would generally be the more idiomatic choice.

alphabet
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    'A man was there who loved animals and all wild things' is a grammatical existential usage, in an archaic/literary register of course. 'There lived a man ...' likewise. The default reading, at least of the first example, is of course locative. With 'There was a man ...', the existential meaning becomes the default. – Edwin Ashworth Dec 12 '23 at 11:03
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    Thanks alphabet. Pointing out the different uses of 'there' reminded me of this and put things in clear context. For the record, I was teaching a student conversational English. I asked why he was going to a particular place. He said, "Because there is my friend's house," and I wanted to say, "Because my friend's house is there." would be better, but I lacked the ability to explain it on the spot. – Les Dec 13 '23 at 00:33
  • @Les I think the original sentence "Because there is my friend's house” is a more interesting and slightly different language problem to the one hypothesised in the OP (question). Why do I find your student's response odder (or less idiomatic according to alphabet's conclusion) than saying "A supermarket is there”? – Mari-Lou A Dec 13 '23 at 09:17
  • Conversation between two people: "Well, it was a garage. But now, a supermarket is there." Everything depends on context and this is one of them where the sentence works fine. – Lambie Dec 13 '23 at 15:58
  • @Les So there are two or three issues for your student there! The first is this: you can use the locative word there as the first word in a sentence, and you can use it before the word be and you could easily use it with the noun supermarket afterwards. Consider, first, initial there with the verb be and a noun phrase: Look, there' Bob! or There's your sister! or There's my friend's house, the one with the green roof. We only do this when we are actually pointing something out to someone. – Araucaria - Him Dec 13 '23 at 16:22
  • @Les Second, we can front the locative word there whenever it represents extra information (i.e. it isn't subject of the clause or a complement of the verb, for example the verb be). Consider: There, I was very happy or There you can buy loads of interesting things to eat. However, if we are not pointing things out to someone, we cannot swap the locative word there with the subject if it is the complement of the verb be. And we cannot use the locative word there as a subject itself [apart from in a tiny handful of pseudo-cleft instructions, which are very weird]. Consider .. – Araucaria - Him Dec 13 '23 at 16:37
  • @Les *There is hot (meaning It's hot there), *There is exhausting (meaning Tokyo is exhausting) <-- Both bad because the locative preposition there can't usually be used as subject. And *There is my friend's house (meaning My friend's house is in Tokyo) or *There is the Prime Minister (meaning The PM is in the Houses of Parliament) <--Bad, inverted with subject. Lastly, it's good for students to know that existential there is usually used so we don't have an indefinite noun phrase like a supermarket as subject. – Araucaria - Him Dec 13 '23 at 16:51
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    @EdwinAshworth Indeed. In "A man was there who loved animals and all wild things," with an existential interpretation, the dummy there is still (understood as) the subject, but the sentence has undergone subject-dependent inversion, as in "Happy are those who..." When dummy there is the subject in question, as you point out, this is restricted to literary or archaic style. ("There lived a man..." isn't an example of the existential construction, in H&P's terminology, but rather the separate "presentational construction.") – alphabet Dec 13 '23 at 19:51
  • @Araucaria-Him I want my potato there. [deictic]. – Lambie Dec 13 '23 at 21:02
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    @Lambie Definite potato. – Araucaria - Him Dec 13 '23 at 23:00
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    @Araucaria-Him your third comment struck a chord with me.... "the locative preposition can't usually be used as a subject...". I have to teach him (or ensure he is aware of) the dummy 'there' vs the locative 'there'. And then practice them quite a bit to be able to use them fluently in conversation. – Les Dec 14 '23 at 01:18
  • @alphabet It can't be a case of simple inversion, can it? That would give us A man who loved animals and all wild things was there – Araucaria - Him Dec 14 '23 at 11:32
  • @Araucaria- I want my potato there. [deictic]. That "him" was wrong. I truly do not know where that came from. – Lambie Dec 14 '23 at 12:47
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Both the Original Poster's examples above are grammatical, but (1) is awkward and (2) is more natural. In English we don't like to use indefinite noun phrases as subjects— in particular those beginning with a —as they are difficult for listeners to process. This is particularly true if we have an indefinite noun phrase used with [BE + a locative complement]. In the following sentences we see an indefinite subject used with the verb BE and a locative complement which tells us about the location of the subject:

  1. A supermarket is on the corner.
  2. A barber shop was in the town.
  3. A small scribble was on the paper.

All of those examples are perfectly grammatical, but they are also awkward and unidiomatic. There are two main ways to fix this. We can either use locative inversion where we swap the position of the subject and the locative phrase:

  1. On the corner is a supermarket.
  2. In the town was a barber shop.
  3. On the paper was a small scribble.

Or, we can use an existential construction which uses a meaningless dummy subject, the word there, and delays the indefinite noun phrase thus making it easier to process:

  1. There was a supermarket on the corner
  2. There was a barber shop in the town.
  3. There was a small scribble on the paper.

Or, often better, we can front the locative phrase as we would with a straightforward locative inversion, and we can then use an existential clause after it. This delays the indefinite noun phrase till even later making it not only easier to process, but also satisfyingly revelatory when it does arrive:

  1. On the corner there was a supermarket.
  2. In the town, there was a barber shop.
  3. On the piece of paper, there was a small scribble.

And hence the loveliness of Tolkien's first line of The Hobbit, although it uses the verb live instead of the verb be:

  1. In a hole in the ground there lived a hobbit.

So, to sum up, the Original Poster's example which uses an existential construction with There is much more natural and listener-friendly than the one using A as the first word.

Araucaria - Him
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    I don't find "A supermarket is on the corner" as problematic as "A supermarket is there." Although both become fine as the answer to the questions "What is {on the corner/over there}?" – Barmar Dec 12 '23 at 16:00
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    Regarding your examples such as, "A supermarket is on the corner.": As an American English speaker, I do find that sentence awkward, but not because of the structure per se. I expect a sentence with the form, "A[n] X is Y," to make a statement about the general category of X's. Compare with sentences like, "A stuck clock is right twice a day," or, "A wizard is never late." I think the real problem is that the sentence is almost a garden path—I have to pause and reevaluate once I realize it's not a statement about the category of supermarkets. – Chris Bouchard Dec 12 '23 at 16:25
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    @ChrisBouchard Yes, that's absolutely right. Generic NPs are fine as subjects, it's indefinites referring to an actual single entity that are problematic (because the listener has to create an image of the individual thing with no background or orienting information). So A cooker is usually in the kitchen, whereas a barbecue is normally outside is ok, but A cooker is in the kitchen today is weird. So your language brain is immediately pointing you towards a generic reading of the indefinite article. Shows how strongly we dislike referential indefinite NPs as subjects! – Araucaria - Him Dec 13 '23 at 15:49
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    @Araucaria-Him Ok! Deleting my old comment since it is indeed now irrelevant. – alphabet Dec 13 '23 at 16:37