What grammar is used in "are there" for not a question & "is a compromise view" without a subject?

Question

I have found 2 sentences in a law book, but I cannot figure out what grammar rules are used in them. Please advise.

• 1.) In no state, however, are there [what rule, why such order of the words?] specific guidelines as to what constitutes participation in another business . . .

The above sentence is not a question, so why is there subject-auxiliary verb inversion?

In the following example, why is there no subject?

• 2.) Between these two extremes, however, is a compromise view. [no subject? What rule is this?], which seems . . .

Answer 1

The first sentence is an example of negative inversion: after a negating, adverbial word or phrase, the subject and auxiliary (here the verb "to be") are often reversed in order:

There are no rules in any state

In no state (negation) are there any rules

Similarly:

In no way am I going to eat my peas!

Never has he travelled by bus.

Not until she went to France did she realise how much she loved baguettes.

The main reason to use this inversion is for formality; rarely is it used in everyday speech.

There are exceptions to this rule and times when it is optional. See Negative inversion for a good overview.

In your second sentence, "there", which would act as a subject, is simply omitted:

Between these two extremes (there) is a compromise view.

"There" in this case is the existential there - it is not an actual subject, though it can stand in for one. In your example sentence, it is simply not necessary.

Similarly:

In the garden (there) was a dog.

On the wall (there) was a giant spider.

Again, this is not common in everyday speech, and is usually used in formal circumstances or storytelling.

Answer 2

The first sentence, could be written like this:

There are in no state specific guidelines as to what constitutes participation in another business...

To make this more formal, and to add some contrast, the sentence is broken into pieces and rearranged.

The second sentence is all the same, except for word 'there', which is left out. The sentence could be written like this:

There is a compromise view between these two extremes, which seems...

Again the sentence is written this way to make it more formal.

Answer 3

Between these two extremes, however, is a compromise view which seems...

If we leave out "however" (because it's separated by commas):

Between these two extremes is a compromise view which seems...

Does it seem weird now? No. We can say: Between them is a compromise view which seems...

Same goes for the first sentence. Maybe the structure - in [somewhere] + there is confusing you. When you say "There is a thing in Somewhere." You don't actually need "there" to understand the question, right? Obviously, "there" is part of the expression/idiom (I don't know the nomenclature.) so you have to put it, because that's how you would say it as a native speaker, and it's grammatically correct. Oh yes, and, both "between these two extremes" and "in no state" are adverbials (complexes) after the adverbials the verb goes first, then everything else - that's why it's not "there are" - that only works when the adverbial is at the beginning of the sentence.