"One way to look at it is to think of the sentence in "normal" word order -- Three boys were there in the swimming pool." Not sure that's the same sentence. Doesn't the *there* in this rewording function as a true deictic? *There* in the original "There were three boys in the swimming pool" isn't truly deictic. Peter Peter and Nan Fries Box 310 Mount Pleasant MI 48804 Phone: 989-644-3384 Cell: 989-400-3764 Email: [log in to unmask] On Fri, Jan 12, 2018 at 12:16 AM, jmckibban < [log in to unmask]> wrote: > One way to look at it is to think of the sentence in "normal" word order > -- Three boys were there in the swimming pool. > In this structure "Three boys" is the complete subject and the rest is the > complete predicate. > > > > Sent from my Verizon, Samsung Galaxy smartphone > > -------- Original message -------- > From: Scott Woods <[log in to unmask]> > Date: 1/11/18 6:41 PM (GMT-05:00) > To: [log in to unmask] > Subject: Question: Complete predicate with "There" expletive > > Hi All, > > What would you call the complete predicate in the following sentences? > > <There were three boys in the swimming pool> > <There was a man in the tree eating mangoes and dropping the pits on those > below> > <There is a house in New Orleans they call the Rising Sun> > > The traditional diagramming analysis claims that, since the expletive > doesn't play a role in the sentence, then the sentence can be rewritten > without it. > > <Three boys were in the swimming pool> > > The complete predicate of the original sentence would include the > adverbial modifiers of the place of existence of the boys. > > This seems wrong to me. The sense that I get of the sentence is <Three > boys in the swimming pool existed>. > > The second sentence rewritten according to traditional diagramming would > be <A man was in the tree eating mangoes and dropping the pits on those > below>. > > The third sentence would be <A house was in New Orleans they call the > Rising Sun>. This doesn't work because the adjective clause now modifies > <New Orleans> and not <house>. This would seem to show that the first two > sentences don't really work in the way that traditional diagramming > supposes they do. > > One purpose of this type of sentence seems to be to give us the ability to > focus on the subject with its modifiers, to make it clear that we are > talking about boys in a swimming pool, a man in a tree, or a house in New > Orleans, with all of their modifiers, that the subject with all these > attributes exists and not that the subject exists with these attributes. > > Thoughts? > > Thanks, > > Scott Woods > > To join or leave this LISTSERV list, please visit the list's web interface > at: http://listserv.muohio.edu/archives/ateg.html and select "Join or > leave the list" > > Visit ATEG's web site at http://ateg.org/ > To join or leave this LISTSERV list, please visit the list's web interface at: http://listserv.muohio.edu/archives/ateg.html and select "Join or leave the list" Visit ATEG's web site at http://ateg.org/