John,
     My own perspective on your second example would be that "there" is 
not the subject of the sentence, but is a place holder for the 
extraposed subject, which shows up on the right (other) side of the 
verb. You could unravel it to "A life was here then.:
     It's hard to explain your first example outside of context. Example 
(I'm guessing). "Was there ever a good reason to marry her?" "There 
never was." In this instance "A good reason to marry her" would be the 
understood subject.
    For some reason, we don't like to say things like "raining is," so 
we say "It is raining." I think "there" (in these instances) is 
functioning in the same way. A sentence can be called existential when 
you are asserting the existence of something. Your second sentence does 
a little more than that with "here" and "then" as modifiers.
     I look forward to other views.

Craig

On 10/27/2010 8:36 PM, John Chorazy wrote:
>
> Hello to all...
>
> Please share some wisdom on the use of "there" as an expletive 
> expression taking the dummy role/position as subject (not an adverb) 
> in the following models taken from Sam Shepard's /True West. /My 
> understanding is that the expletive "there" must be the subject of a 
> verb of existence, which happens here in the past tense, to be the 
> subject of a sentence... it's not in the locative, if I'm 
> correct. Thank you!
>
> "There never was."
>
> "There was a life here then."
>
> John
>
>
>
> John Chorazy
> English III Academy, Honors, and Academic
> Pequannock Township High School
>
> Nulla dies sine linea.
>
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