Timeline for Can you explain the sentence structure 'In a hole in the ground there lived a Hobbit'? Why put the verb before the subject?
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| Dec 11, 2015 at 21:41 | comment | added | Araucaria - Him | Well, there's loads of evidence, but the most straightforward is that if you turn it into a question it's the word there that inverts with the auxiliary to form the question: "In that hole in the ground, [did] [there] live a hobbit?". Similarly, it's the word there that forms the question tag: "In a hole in the ground there lived a hobbit, didn't there" | |
| Dec 11, 2015 at 17:25 | comment | added | Jascol | Just wondering - it's been a while since I've done any trees(!) - how have you come to the conclusion that there is the subject? | |
| Dec 11, 2015 at 14:18 | comment | added | Araucaria - Him | Kind of correct, but kind of wonky. You need to replace the word object with the word complement. Secondly, the Subject of the sentence is the word there, not the PP in a hole in the ground. | |
| Dec 10, 2015 at 17:09 | history | answered | Jascol | CC BY-SA 3.0 |