What is the grammatical subject in these phrases “What’s there to eat?” and “Who is at the door”?
If I say “there’s something to eat, most analyses I have seen seem to imply that the “there” is the grammatical subject of similar existential sentences (but not all sentences with “there + be”, What’s the subject of “there is my biscuit! Is there any way on how to learn to read “”? What is one biscuit left? is an interesting discussion of this))? I also understand that “what”and “who” are the grammatical subject when used to begin questions and that sentences can’t have two subjects (compound subjects not being the same thing).
What am I missing here? How would you explain this situation?
What are you doing to increase your knowledge about everything about IT?
What food should I eat?
In a discussion, it is clear that what is. Therefore, at least, the subject is clearly, what and when.
Fairly recently, some linguists have chosen to call there the subject in basic existential sentences, like this:
There is one person in the room.
But this causes problem, as in your example. The main reasons why they seem to want to label there the subject are that it is the first word in a simple existential sentence, and that, colloquially, singular is can be used even when there are several things in the room:
there’s too many people in the room.
3) One person in a room. It is already in a different room. What is the main difference (potentially) between these two
examples?
Where everyone agrees that one person is the subject.
Inside the room, there is only one person. The person in the room can be contacted.
Adverb 1 is in the first place and causes subject-verb inversion, in the Germanic language. Then the sentence ends and the meaning is repeated. The following are the reasons for the inversion of the subject-verb in both the Italian and the Germanic language.
In English, this only happens with some words, like there, but in German and Dutch it happens with any non-subject in first position. Ich bin heute in Berlin (normal order) Heute bin ich in Berlin. What happened to heute once he was
the subject of the same? I mean that tomorrow had a very different message or maybe it would have stood just as suddenly? Why is the word “Euphoria” having different verbs with different meanings? Occams Razor says no.
In this room is one person today.
The first constituent (subject) in any sentence should be subject after verb. It would be confusing to analyse this sentence differently from there is one person today, since they clearly have the same structure. Nou00f6ne would suggest this: everyone agrees that in this room is adverbial here. and one person the subject.
Further, it seems strange to call a non-noun like there a subject.
Lastly, in languages where adverbs and subjects are more clearly marked as such, by affixes and ends, there is never considered the subject in similar sentences. What are the possibilities in translating Analytical constructs in English to different languages? Both Occam’s Razor and those who are learning linguistics will be displeased at such inefficiency. What is the difference between comparing the use of a common English word and the use of modern English word?
In existential sentences there comes of course an adverb but it can also be singular or colloquial. What are some examples of verbs with different numbers than their subjects or vice versa?
Was invasion and colonisation truly practicable?
How could police be beaten down by the police?
Who is really at the door?
Who are there? Who is clear over here? He is at the door. He is at the door.
He can only be subject (complement).
