After the anticipative subject there the real subject is almost always a noun with modifiers, but it may be a noun clause; for example,—“No, indeed, there is no wonder that God loved the world.”—Phillips Brooks.
The verb in these sentences is usually some form of the verb be. It is not the copula so often as it is the complete intransitive verb be, meaning exist. In the sentence,—“There are many kinds of sea fowl that feed on fish and build their nests on the sea coast,” the entire predicate is the verb are.
When the verb is a copula it is often completed by a prepositional phrase denoting an attribute of the subject. For example, “There is not a crevice in it where anything green can lodge and grow.”—King. Here the predicate is is in it.
Other intransitive verbs are occasionally found after there, as in the sentence, “There came to the beach a poor exile of Erin.”—Campbell.
Exercise 7
Select noun clauses in the following sentences, telling the use of each, its introductory word, and use of that word in the clause, if it has any.
1. People are always cheating themselves with the idea that they would do this or that desirable thing, if they only had time.
2. My notion is that you should let me go, and give me a lamb or goose or two every month, and then I could live without stealing.—Froude.
3. He was desirous that the people should think for themselves as well as tax themselves.—Macaulay.
4. Whatever is worth doing at all is worth doing well.