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Expletives Are Not Always Bad
Words |
Many Americans consider Red House, a song by Jimi
Hendrix, to be a great piece of Rock and Roll music.
"There's a red house over yonder (baby)..."
Today we will show you how one line from this song can
give you a large amount of grammatical information. It
can also help you say words and expressions correctly.
We will explore the strange case of expletives – words
that have a grammatical purpose, but no real meaning.
Message from a teacher
After a recent Everyday Grammar story, we received a
question from a teacher. The teacher asked about the
grammatical structure of an Ernest Hemingway quote. The
line has the words, "there are shadows of the leaves."
The teacher wrote:
"My students often ask about sentences such as
Hemingway's "there are shadows of the leaves" with the
expletive "there." What are your thoughts on "there"
sentences that don't include an adverbial? How can we
analyze them?"
Now, you might be asking yourself about the relationship
between the teacher's question and Hendrix's song Red
House.
It turns out that Hemingway and Hendrix have something
in common.
But before we tell you how, we need to give you some
definitions.
Explanation of an expletive
The word expletive has two meanings. It can mean
something that people say when they are angry or in
pain. These are called swear words. We are not talking
about them today.
Instead, we will be talking about expletives in grammar.
They are words that have a grammatical purpose but do
not carry meaning.
One common place you will find expletives are in
expressions called "Existential-there sentences."
Do not worry about the difficult name. Existential-there
sentences are common in American English.
Consider the statement "Mice are in the house." The
sentence has the subject, "mice," the verb BE, and an
adverb phrase, "in the house."
The sentence could be changed to say, "There are mice in
the house." This is an example of an "existential-there
sentence." The word there takes a place in the sentence,
but it has no meaning.
Here is one way to look at the sentence. There is the
grammatical subject. It is taking the position that a
noun phrase usually does. But, it is neither a noun nor
a pronoun! It is an expletive.
In the sentence, "There are mice in the house," the word
there becomes the grammatical subject. "Mice" becomes
the logical subject, and the adverb phrase, "in the
house" remains the same.
This structure is common in speaking and writing. Think
back to the famous lines from Jimi Hendrix's rock song,
Red House.
"There's a red house over yonder (baby)..."
The lines "There's a red house over yonder" have the
same structure as the sentence about the mouse.
Now you might be asking yourself a question: What is the
purpose of there? It fills a grammatical slot, but does
not have meaning. Why would writers, musicians, and
other people use it?
While we may never know the exact reason that Hemingway
or Hendrix used there, we suspect it sounded better to
their ears.
Martha Kolln is an English grammar expert. She notes
that English speakers make their voices go up and down
while they are talking. They often say the first word or
two of a sentence quietly, then raise their voice. She
calls this idea "end focus."
By using there at the beginning of the sentence, the
subject moves to a spot later in the sentence – where
the voice places stress on it.
Listen to the rock song again. Notice how Hendrix uses
there to direct the listener’s attention to the logical
subject of the sentence: red house.
"There's a red house over yonder (baby)..."
Hendrix could have said, "A red house is over yonder."
The sentence would have had a similar meaning to the
lines of the song. But it does not sound nearly as good.
Back to the teacher's question
Why wouldn't a speaker or writer include an adverbial
phrase, such as "over yonder" or "in the house?"
First, they may have made a stylistic choice. Adverbials
can appear at different places in a sentence. In other
words, they are movable.
Second, sometimes writers and speakers will not use an
adverb phrase when the location is known. Hemingway
wrote "…there are shadows of the leaves" after he had
already made it clear he was writing about a café.
Hemingway did not write "there are shadows of the leaves
on the sidewalk next to the café," for example.
Why not? Hemingway made a stylistic decision. Sometimes
stylistic choices do not follow traditional grammar
rules or analysis.
Expletives and Style
English has expletives other than there. These include
words such as it and do, writes English grammar expert
Max Morenberg.
We will not study these expletives today. However, we
will leave you with some advice.
You should be careful about how you use expletives. In
general, one should not use sentences that begin with
the expletive there too often. The overuse of there
often creates unclear – or perhaps uninteresting –
writing.
Remember that the expletive there does not have a
meaning. If your goal is to be brief with wording, then
you may not want to use the expletive there.
That said, try to listen and look for example of how
speakers use expletives. Ask yourself how they build
their sentences, and if they could have produced a
sentence with the same meaning.
There are reasons to use expletives. Sometimes you
should use them; sometimes you should not.
We will leave you with words from the musical, West Side
Story.
There's a time for us,
Some day a time for us,
I'm Pete Musto.
And I'm John Russell.
John Russell wrote this story for Learning English.
George Grow was the editor. |
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