2. By some noun-pronouns:
a) indefinite. Is there anybody there? There was something wrong about the whole situation.
b) negative. There was nobody in. There was nothing to do.
c) universal (only some of them). There were all of them on the bank. There were both of them present.
The pronouns of these three classes are the most frequent in existential sentences. The ones that follow are very seldom used:
d) detaching. There was the other to be asked.
e) demonstrative. There is this which is to be settled.
3. By a gerund or a gerundial phrase.
There was no talking that evening.There’s no going against bad blood.
4. By a clause. First, there is what we might call a pattern.
Negative sentences with introductory there are formed in the usual way for the verbs which are their predicates, that is, by means of appropriate auxiliaries for all the verbs but to be.
In the latter case two negative сonstructions are possible:
a) either with the negative pronoun no, as in: There was no sign of him in the hall. There is no knowing when he will come.
b) or with the negation not, often followed by the indefinite pronoun any, or without it, as in: There weren’t (were not) any flowers on the balconies. There isn’t a cloud in the sky.
The sentence is also negative if the subject itself is a negative pronoun: There was nobody in. There was nothing to say.
The Predicate as the principal part of the sentence. Structural classification of the predicate.
The predicate is the second main part of the sentence and its organizing centre, as the object and nearly all adverbial modifiers are connected with, and dependent on, it. Присудок це другий головний член речення і його організаційний центру, як додаток, і майже всі обставини, пов'язаний з ним, і залежать від нього. The predicate may be considered from the semantic or from the structural point of view. Предикат може розглядатися з семантичної або структурної точки зору.
Structurally the predicate in English expressed by a finite verb agrees with the subject in number and person. The only exception to this rule is a compound modal and a simple nominal predicate, the latter having no verb form at all.
According to the meaning of its components, the predicate may denote an action, a state, a quality, or an attitude to some action or state ascribed to the subject. These different meanings find their expression in the structure of the predicate and the lexical meaning of its constituents.
Structural classification of the predicate. From the structural point of view there are two main types of predicate: the simple predicate and the compound predicate.
Both these types may be either nominal or verbal, which gives four sub-groups: simple verbal, simple nominal, compound verbal, compound nominal.
Compound verbal predicates (складний дієслівний присудок) may be further classified into phasal, modal and of double orientation.
Compound nominal predicates (Складний іменний присудок) may be classified into nominal proper and double nominal.
