Tham khảo tài liệu 'longman grammar of spoken and written english part 70', ngoại ngữ, ngữ pháp tiếng anh phục vụ nhu cầu học tập, nghiên cứu và làm việc hiệu quả | 946 WORD ORDER AND RELATED SYNTACTIC CHOICES Table Distribution of the most common simple verbs other than be in existential clauses occurrences per million words each represents 5 C represents less than 3 CONV FICT NEWS ACAD seem D a come Û IIIHH 0 occur L r exist DISCUSSION OF FINDINGS The variation in fiction is characteristic of this register s tendency to use a greater variety of lexical items for stylistic effect cf. . In contrast there is less variation in news and academic prose and only one unusual occurrence of an existential clause without be in conversation I don t think they re every twelve minutes. There hasn t gone an eighteen . bus up yet. conv Academic prose with its predilection for Latinate words shows a tendency to use exist in addition to its less formal-sounding synonym be. Exceptionally we may find a transitive verb used together with existential there Well then on some comer of Time s beach or on the muddy rim of one of her more significant rivulets there have been washed together casually and indifferently a number of features that Nature had tossed away as of no use to any of her creations fict There seized him a fear that perhaps after all it was all true. fictI The language in these examples is stylistically marked but the existential clause is typical in that it contains an indefinite notional subject following the verb. Overall although combinations occur with other verbs existential clauses are overwhelmingly associated with the verb be. The notional subject The notional subject is typically an indefinite noun phrase with a noun or an indefinite pronoun as head. The noun phrase is often complex There is something extra and a little heroic about him. fict There must be an enormous sense of isolation of being aware of being let down news There is in fact a formalism to hand which perfectly expresses the idea of superposition acad The head of the noun phrase may be followed by a non-finite clause There s a bear .
