# es kommen auch Feste



## screamerer

Hallo, Guten Tag, ..

Can you please help me understand the following sentence:

"*Aber es kommen auch Feste aus anderen Regionen in die deutschsprachigen Länder*"
*

*
Vielen Dank.


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## HilfswilligerGenosse

I would, depending on context, translate it as: 

"However/Nevertheless, also festivals from other regions are coming into the German-speaking lands."


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## screamerer

HilfswilligerGenosse said:


> I would, depending on context, translate it as:
> 
> "However/Nevertheless, also festivals from other regions are coming into the German-speaking lands."



Hallo,

But what does the _*es*_ in the sentence stand for?

Danke.


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## Demiurg

"es" is a dummy subject to keep the verb in second position:

_Es kommen Feste in die Länder_.
_Feste kommen in die Länder_.


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## exgerman

Demiurg said:


> "es" is a dummy subject to keep the verb in second position:
> 
> _Es kommen Feste in die Länder_.
> _Feste kommen in die Länder_.



True, but that leaves the question "what is the difference between the two phrasings?" . 

(English has two similar locutions: "There are festivals coming from other countries" and "Festivals are coming from other countries")


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## screamerer

Is *es* there a _dativ_ or _akkusativ_ object?


Danke.


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## DerFrosch

screamerer said:


> Is *es* there a _dativ_ or _akkusativ_ object?



It's *not *an object at all. It's a dummy subject, as Demiurg already told you. The "real" subject in your sentence is "_Feste_". There is no object in the sentence, as the only verb (_kommen_) is intransitive.


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## screamerer

But isn't it an object in the inverted form "_*es kommen auch Feste*_"?


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## Perseas

screamerer said:


> But isn't it an object in the inverted form "_*es kommen auch Feste*_"?


*Wer* kommt? *Feste *(*= *subject).
*Wen* oder *was* (acc.) kommen die Feste?!  There is no such question. No object.
As mentioned before, *es* is a dummy subject.


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## bearded

screamerer said:


> Is *es* there a _dativ_ or _akkusativ_ ?
> Danke.


I agree with Perseas and above answers.
Just to reply to the question: technically, 'es' is a nominative.  Owing to its nature of 'dummy subject', the verb is in the plural as it refers to the real subject (Feste).
In French (if you understand that language) there is something similar:  _Il arrivent des festivités.... ce ne sont pas les festivités...
PS: _I have chosen 'festivités' and not 'fetes' because e with 'accent circonflexe' is missing in my keyboard.


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## screamerer

Danke.


bearded man said:


> Just to reply to the question: technically, 'es' is a nominative.  Owing to its nature of 'dummy subject', the verb is in the plural as it refers to the real subject (Feste).


Hallo, ..

Thanks for putting your finger on a word most related to the very problem itself, for, as I understand, the term "dummy subject" is more _artistical_ rather than _technical_, and when we say that _Feste_ is the real subject, then it's the "technical" subject, and at that level there can only be one such subject and so _es_ is left out. Thus if we strip away all the semantics influence and analyze that sentence from a low level, pure grammar point of view, then the discussion will (I believe) confine down to _es_ identifying as either a dative or accusative object - my question.

Danke.


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## bearded

Let us analyze the sentence from a pure grammar point of view, as you say:
the dative case of _es_ would be _ihm _(see declension of pronouns), so it is not a dative.  And no accusative is possible, either, because there is no transitive verb. _Kommen_ is an intransitive verb. Consequently, _es_ must be a nominative according to the grammar (''technically'').
I know that in Arabic a dummy subject does not exist, so you are not accustomed to such a feature. But some European languages do possess it, like German, and it is a very common construction that enables you to form a sentence by postponing the real subject.  A few more examples:
_Es sind traurige Tage...
Es kamen drei Frauen zu uns...
Es wurden zuerst die Fische gesehen..._
In those sentences, _es_ is just an apparent (dummy) subject, useful for keeping the verb in second position, and the real subjects are Tage,Frauen,Fische respectively. The verbs are in the plural, as they refer to the real subjects.
I fully agree with DerFrosch (#7).


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## screamerer

bearded man said:


> I know that in Arabic a dummy subject does not exist, so you are not accustomed to such a feature. But some.. .


Actually I am - owing to English usage, and I do find it pretty much intuitive as well!



bearded man said:


> the dative case of _es_ would be _ihm _(see declension of pronouns), so it is not a dative.


But that's the personal _*es*_ you're referring to _*-*_ is it the same?

Here's a thing: I myself am not really sure whether that also goes for dummy _*es*_ or not, but with the personal version of _*es*_ it's always a definite object, whereas with dummy _*es*_ there's nothing specific being referenced.

If you search somewhere else in the realm of German pronouns, you'll find, for example, that the indefinite pronoun _*etwas*_ is never declined, and if I understand it right, _*etwas*_, dummy _*es*_, *dies* and the demonstrative _*das*_ are all pronouns that refer to the same concept, i.e. what's indefinite, albeit from different positions/with different views, and so that all seems to suggest that "dummy *es*" is to be likewise left un-declined.

That's not to say, of course, I'm persistently defending the claim that _*es*_ there is an object, I just thought it was worth mentioning.. .


Vielen Dank.


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## berndf

I think it is useful to differentiate conceptionally between two types of formal _es_: a dummy subject that, as you said, stands for nothing and simply indicates that the subject-valance of the verb is void (as in _it rains - es regnet_) on the one hand and a forward reference to a real subject mentioned later in the sentences on the other hand. The second type of formal _es _has no correspondence in English (at least not that I know of, not even in frozen expressions) as its principal function is to uphold V2 syntax that isn't mandatory in English anyway.


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## bearded

@berndf
In phrases like ''it is my pleasure to announce....'' wouldn''t you say that 'it' is a dummy subject and pleasure is the real subject? Or perhaps you think that 'it' is an impersonal subject and 'pleasure' is a predicate?  I am uncertain about this... (I know it concerns English and not German, but we are comparing the two languages, therefore I think I am not off-topic).
Screamerer does not seem to trust me, probably because I am not a native German speaker, but I must say that I never heard of such a thing as an undeclined 'es', different from a personal pronoun 'es'. For me there is only one 'es' in grammar, and its dative is 'ihm'.  When 'es' has the function of a dummy or impersonal subject, it remains - of course - in the nominative case. 
 It is possible to say ''von etwas, in etwas..' (undeclined) but not 'von es, in es' (this would become 'von ihm/davon, in ihm/darin).


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## berndf

I thought a while about that when drafting my post and decided it wasn't. I think _my pleasure_ is a predicative noun phrase and not a subject.


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## screamerer

berndf said:


> The second type of formal _es _has no.. .


Hi, berndf. You meant the first, right?


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## berndf

screamerer said:


> Hi, berndf. You meant the first, right?


No, I meant the second. The first type has a correspondence in English: _Es regnet - It rains_.


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## screamerer

bearded man said:


> Screamerer does not seem to trust me, ..


Of course I do, bearded man, and it's even the reason why I pronounced those thoughts to you in the first place!



bearded man said:


> probably because I am not a native German speaker, ..


I'd be lying if I said that didn't matter to me, however, definitely not in your case.


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## bearded

berndf said:


> I thought a while about that when drafting my post and decided it wasn't. I think _my pleasure_ is a predicative noun phrase and not a subject.


I have some objections:
- you could say ''My pleasure is to announce...'' just like ''Feste kommen...(#4) and pleasure would be the subject...
- there is a similarity between ''es sind traurige Tage'' and ''es ist mir eine Freude (es sind mir grosse Freuden?), bekanntzugeben...''
The nature of that es/it is not 100% clear to me.


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## bearded

Thank you, Screamerer, for your kind expressions.


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## berndf

bearded man said:


> - you could say ''My pleasure is to announce...''


I find it difficult to recognize this as correct and idiomatic English.


bearded man said:


> - there is a similarity between ''es sind traurige Tage'' and ''es ist mir eine Freude (es sind mir grosse Freuden?), bekanntzugeben...''


_Es ist mir eine Freude ...
Mir ist es eine Freude ...
Mir ist eine Freude ..._
If _eine Freude _were the subject then the placeholder _es_ would have to disappear, if you placed something else in first position. Compare:
_Es kommt mich ein Freund besuchen.
Mich kommt es ein Freund besuchen.
Mich kommt ein Freund besuchen._


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## ablativ

bearded man said:


> @berndf
> In phrases like ''it is my pleasure to announce....'' wouldn''t you say that 'it' is a dummy subject and pleasure is the real subject? Or perhaps you think that 'it' is an impersonal subject and 'pleasure' is a predicate?  I am uncertain about this... (I know it concerns English and not German, but we are comparing the two languages, therefore I think I am not off-topic).


In the German variant "es ist mir (dat. commodi) ein Vergnügen bekanntzugeben, dass ...", 'es' (in the main clause) refers as a substitute (dummy) for the following subordinate clause or for a following infinitive. Such constructs are called "correlates".

And - referring to screamerer's post - that correlative "es" does not necessarily stand in nominative, it can also be an accusative correlate:

_Ich verstehe es nicht, wie dumm Menschen sein können. 
_
In that case, however, "es" cannot stand in the first position and is also dispensable, while the "es" in nominative is - as others said before me - necessary to keep the finite verb in the second position.

"Es" cannot stand as a preposition in general and particulary not in dative:

_Ich glaube ... an es  ...daran  _(acc.) _..., dass morgen die Sonne scheint. (_mit es , damit  [dative])


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## bearded

ablativ said:


> And - referring to screamerer's post - that correlative "es" does not necessarily stand in nominative, it can also be an accusative correlate


But of course not in the OP's sentence...


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## elroy

In "It is my pleasure to announce today's winner", "it" is a dummy subject, but the real subject is not "my pleasure" but "to announce today's winner."  The sentence can be reworded as "To announce today's winner is my pleasure."  That's not natural or idiomatic, but it's a grammatically correct sentence in English.


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## bearded

elroy said:


> In "It is my pleasure to announce today's winner", "it" is a dummy subject, but the real subject is not "my pleasure" but "to announce today's winner."  The sentence can be reworded as "To announce today's winner is my pleasure."  That's not natural or idiomatic, but it's a grammatically correct sentence in English.



You are right, and I have no more doubts - as concerns these sentences in the English language.


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## berndf

bearded man said:


> You are right, and I have no more doubts - as concerns these sentences in the English language.


But your point remains valid: If To announce today's winner is a real subject than it is not a dummy subject indicating a void subject valancy (type I formal _es_) but a forward reference. I.e. it is indeed a valid example of an English equivalent of a type II formal _es_.


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## DerFrosch

berndf said:


> type II formal _es_



What usage of _es _are you referring to here?


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## bearded

berndf said:


> But your point remains valid: If To announce today's winner is a real subject than it is not a dummy subject indicating a void subject valancy (type I formal _es_) but a forward reference. I.e. it is indeed a valid example of an English equivalent of a type II formal _es_.


I interpret your sentence as ''....is a real subject, then 'it' is not a dummy subject indicating a void subject vacancy...''.
If this is what you mean, then I fully agree.  In terms more familiar to me  -according to my ''Romance'' syntax, I would say:
..then 'it' is not an impersonal subject (like in 'it rains'), but a correlate (as ablativ says) like _ce _in French ''c'est un plaisir de vous annoncer...''.


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## berndf

DerFrosch said:


> What usage of _es _are you referring to here?


The context of my explanation in #14.


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## berndf

bearded man said:


> I interpret your sentence as ''....is a real subject, then 'it' is not a dummy subject indicating a void subject vacancy...''.
> If this is what you mean, then I fully agree.  In terms more familiar to me  -according to my ''Romance'' syntax, I would say:
> ..then 'it' is not an impersonal subject (like in 'it rains'), but a correlate (as ablativ says) like _ce _in French ''c'est un plaisir de vous annoncer...''.


Exactly. The only peculiarity of the German construct is that it allows empathizing (topicalizing) the verb by moving the subject to 3rd position. I still don't think that there are English equivalents, at list not in idiomatic language or is the following idiomatic English?
_A man came through the door. -> It came a man through the door._


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## DerFrosch

berndf said:


> The context of my explanation in #14.



I understand that, but you never gave any examples as far as I can see. So it's not clear to me even in that context what you're referring to.


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## berndf

DerFrosch said:


> I understand that, but you never gave any examples as far as I can see. So it's not clear to me even in that context what you're referring to.


An example of type I is in #14, an example of type II is the OP.


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## bearded

berndf said:


> or is the following idiomatic English?
> _A man came through the door. -> It came a man through the door_


You are right here. The idiomatic formulation would be _there came a man through the door_, but the adverb 'there' is of course not the same as the pronoun 'es', so it cannot function as an apparent subject. In my language it is all much simpler, because we have neither the 'es' of es regnet (we say _piove) _nor the 'es' of es kam ein Mann durch die Tür (we say _entrò un uomo dalla porta_): the initial verb in the 3rd person is sufficient to us for forming such constructions (in fact, we spare words for the sake of austerity...).


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## Dan2

bearded man said:


> The idiomatic formulation would be _there came a man through the door_


Very relevant observation, I think.  (But the sentence is not "idiomatic" in the sense of "in use in everyday language", but it is fully grammatical and acceptable (just somewhat "poetic").  With "to be" the construction becomes fully idiomatic: "There is a man in the room".)


bearded man said:


> ... would be _there came a man through the door_, but the adverb 'there' is of course not the same as the pronoun 'es', so it cannot function as an apparent subject..


Well, not the same, right, but I think it serves a similar function.

English may not be a verb-second language (we say "Today I will ..." not "Today will I ..."), but like German it takes pains not to be verb-_first_ (in declarative sentences).  In your sentence "there" is quite "empty" semantically, like "es" in "Es kam ein Mann...", and like that "es" its main purpose seems to be to avoid "verb-first".

And I'm not sure that "adverb" is the best description for the "there" in "There is..." sentences.  Note that after some verbs, the subject of a subordinate clause in English (but not in German or Romance) is moved into the main clause, leaving behind an infinitive.  Corresponding to "*He* is healthy" we have "I want *him *to be healthy".  The "there" of "There is a man in the room" seems to be treated exactly like any noun- or pronoun-subject in this regard: "I want there to be a man in the room" (a fully idiomatic sentence).  This is suggestive that the semantically empty "there", just like the semantically empty "es", is in some sense a formal subject, syntactically, and not a random adverb.  Furthermore, true adverbs are not idiomatic in this position: "Suddenly is/was a man in the room" and "Clearly exists a problem with this car" are ungrammatical.

(I wouldn't be surprised if there are counter-examples to the view I seem to be arguing for here, but this is as far as I've thought about it...)


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## bearded

Your remark is very interesting indeed, Dan2, although I am very reluctant to admit 'there' to be a formal *subject *under any circumstances. Maybe I should have written that it is 'originally an adverb', which in some cases has the function of a 'formal particle' or false subject ..?
Two more observations, by the way:
- In some German tales (Erzählungen) it is not unusual to read _Da kam ein Mann durch die Tür_ instead of _Es kam...._, and I think that this _da_ can have the same function as the above 'there' - although I am almost certain that, according to some of our German friends, the _da _must mean 'zu diesem Zeitpunkt'...
- You say that in Romance languages a construction like (or similar to) ''I want him to be healthy'' does not exist. Well, that is not completely true.
In literary Italian we can find e.g. _Egli pensava essere suo dovere combattere cogli altri _(he thought (it) to be his duty to fight with the others).
[Besides, in classical Latin the construction ''accusative + infinitive'' is a rule for all 'objective clauses'].


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## screamerer

ablativ said:


> .., while the "es" in nominative is - as others said before me - necessary to keep the finite verb in the second position.



My source of confusion here has been how that _*es*_ be deemed nominative when there is already another nominative, _*Feste*_, in the sentence. As I know, the only time a statement can have two nominative nouns
is when the verb is a copula verb.. .

-Can a sentence with an action verb have two separate nominative nouns?


Danke.


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## Dan2

bearded man said:


> In literary Italian we can find e.g. _Egli pensava essere suo dovere combattere cogli altri _(he thought (it) to be his duty to fight with the others).


Well, wait a minute... . The interesting thing about sentences like "I want *him *to be healthy" is the accusative "him" as logical subject of the infinitive.  After telling us in Post 34 that Italian doesn't use an equivalent to the German/English dummy es/it, you give us here another sentence without an analog to es/it, and then rely on the _translation into English_, with its "it", to justify your Italian sentence as analogous to the "I want *him *to..." sentence.  So I'd ask, is it possible to say "Egli *mi *pensava (or Egli pensava *Paolo*) essere un amico suo"?  Only that would establish that my English construction exists in Italian.


bearded man said:


> [Besides, in classical Latin the construction ''accusative + infinitive'' is a rule for all 'objective clauses'].


Is classical Latin a "Romance language"?  (But thanks for the pointer.) (I don't study languages with no native speakers for me to talk to...)

Oh... one more argument for regarding the "there" of "There is a ..." as a (dummy) subject.  As with noun and pronoun subjects, we form a question from "There is" sentences by inverting "there" and verb: "He is ..."/"Is he...?"; "There is..."/"Is there...?".  Just like "Es gibt"/"Gibt es?"


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## Dan2

screamerer said:


> My source of confusion here has been how that _*es*_ be deemed nominative when there is already another nominative, _*Feste*_, in the sentence. As I know, (I think you mean, "As *far *as I know"/"*Soweit *ich weiß" -Dan) the only time a statement can have two nominative nouns is when the verb is a copula verb.. .
> 
> -Can a sentence with an action verb have two separate nominative nouns? (I assume you mean "nouns or pronouns" -Dan)


Possibility 1: Yes, and the "Es kommen auch Feste..." sentence is an example of such a construction (a very _common _construction, incidentally).

Possibility 2: No, and thus the "Es" of this sentence must be in some non-nominative case, as you suggested earlier in the thread.

Given that a) native speakers feel this "Es" to be a nominative, and b) there is an absence of any evidence that this "es" is specifically a genitive, dative, or accusative pronoun, I think we have to favor "Possibility 1".   A good question to have raised, however.


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## DerFrosch

screamerer said:


> -Can a sentence with an action verb have two separate nominative nouns?



I think the answer depends on what you understand "noun" to mean. If you think that a pronoun is a type of noun, then the answer is yes. But if you understand noun as the German "Substantiv", then the answer is no.


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## berndf

bearded man said:


> [Besides, in classical Latin the construction ''accusative + infinitive'' is a rule for all 'objective clauses'].


The English equivalent of the Latin or German ACI is accusative+Gerund in English: _Vedi milites pugnare - Ich sah die Soldaten kämpfen - I saw the soldiers fighting._


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## ablativ

berndf said:


> The English equivalent of the Latin or German ACI is accusative+Gerund in English: _Vedi milites pugnare - Ich sah die Soldaten kämpfen - I saw the soldiers fighting._


But _I saw the soldiers fight _is good English, too, isn't it? And _ich fand ihn schlafend _(Part. Präs.) _im Garten _is correct, too.


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## Dan2

ablativ said:


> But _I saw the soldiers fight _is good English, too, isn't it?


Yes, perfect.

(In my earlier parenthetical comment I had in mind that English-speaking students of German have to learn to avoid translating, for ex., "I want him to visit his mother" as "Ich will ihn seine Mutter zu besuchen", or "I know him to be intelligent" as "Ich weiß ihn intelligent zu sein".)


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## bearded

Dan2 said:


> Well, wait a minute  etc. etc.


In literary (and just slightly outdated) Italian, sentences like ''egli pensava/sosteneva Paolo essere un suo amico'', or ''egli riteneva la difesa della patria essere il suo primo dovere'' are indeed not only possible, but quite common. They do not belong to colloquial Italian, of course.
(I only mentioned Latin in order to confirm that the 'accusative+infinitive' construction is not unknown - and from the very start - to the 'Latin' world.  I regard those constructions in Italian, as a continuation of the Latin ones.  Since in German they do not exist, might English have inherited them from Latin?). In Italian you naturally cannot identify the elements in the accusative from morphology, since declensions have disappeared.

My reluctance to consider 'there' a possible (dummy) subject remains unchanged. Your parallel beween ''there is..'' and ''es gibt..'' does not convince me, sorry.  Instead of ''es gibt einen Mann'' you could as well say ''da ist ein Mann'', and this 'da' would be a sort of location (here/there), which in turn would confirm my point that 'there' is but an adverb of place. To give it a function - or position - similar to that of a dummy subject, is just a usage or _Redewendung_ of the English language, in my view.

In your #39, although denying possibility no2, you say ''in absence of any evidence that 'es' is...genitive, dative...'' and ''a good question to have raised''.
Might there ever be such an evidence?  Can 'es' ever be undeclinable? You seem to remotely admit that (but I may be mistaken. Do you agree with my #12 and the last part of #15?).


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## bearded

berndf said:


> The English equivalent of the Latin or German ACI is accusative+Gerund in English: _Vedi milites pugnare - Ich sah die Soldaten kämpfen - I saw the soldiers fighting._


Are you sure that _vidi milites pugnare _or _ich sah die Soldaten kämpfen _are sentences equivalent to English ''accusative+infinitive'' clauses?  I feel they rather mean ''I saw them while they were fighting''. Main verbs that have to do with _Sinnesorgane (sehen, hören...) _are tricky and not the best examples.  In my opinion, what we are discussing here are constructions like ''I believe him to be good/_puto eum esse bonum''_, and I don't think that such a construction exists in German.


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## berndf

bearded man said:


> Are you sure that _vidi milites pugnare _or _ich sah die Soldaten kämpfen _are sentences equivalent to English ''accusative+infinitive'' clauses?  I feel they rather mean ''I saw them while they were fighting''. Main verbs that have to do with _Sinnesorgane (sehen, hören...) _are tricky and not the best examples.  In my opinion, what we are discussing here are constructions like ''I believe him to be good/_puto eum esse bonum''_, and I don't think that such a construction exists in German.


I accept Ablative's remark (confirmed by Dan) the _I saw the soldiers fight_ is equally possible. I don't recognize a difference in meaning between _I saw the soldiers fight_ and _I saw the soldiers fighting._ I understand _fighting _as a Gerund replacing the _infinitive _and not as a participle.


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## bearded

I accept that remark, too, but I think that's not the point. The question (posed by Dan2 in #38) was the existence or non-existence, in various languages, of a construction corresponding to ''I want him to be healthy'' in English.  Now, whereas in Italian there seem to be some similar old-fashioned constructions, I think that in German ''ich will ihn gesund  sein'' is wrong.  Since you gave as an example ''ich sah die Soldaten kämpfen'', my point was that your example was unfit because it is a different kind of sentence (you can transform it into ''ich sah, wie die Soldaten kämpften'').


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## berndf

bearded man said:


> Since you gave as an example ''ich sah die Soldaten kämpfen'', my point was that your example was unfit because it is a different kind of sentence


Well, you introduced the Latin ACI, not I.


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## DerFrosch

bearded man said:


> My reluctance to consider 'there' a possible (dummy) subject remains unchanged. Your parallel beween ''there is..'' and ''es gibt..'' does not convince me, sorry. Instead of ''es gibt einen Mann'' you could as well say ''da ist ein Mann'', and this 'da' would be a sort of location (here/there), which in turn would confirm my point that 'there' is but an adverb of place. To give it a function - or position - similar to that of a dummy subject, is just a usage or _Redewendung_ of the English language, in my view



I'm not quite sure why you refuse to accept "there" as a dummy subject. If I understand you correctly, you do accept "it" as a dummy subject, and the reason you feel that "there" can't be a dummy subject is that you consider it an adverb only.

Now, it does seem quite likely that this usage of "there", as I think you implied earlier, orginated in the unambiguous use of "there" as an adverb of place. (Maybe Dan can confirm this theory?)

However, I think it's pretty clear that it's not used as an adverb today. Whereas the adverb "there" gives information about location, "there" as pronoun gives information about existence. Consider this sentence, for example:

_There is a man here._ Which word modifies the verb, and is thus an adverb? Considering that "there" and "here" are antonyms, it can logically only be one of them. It must be "here", because the answer to the question "Where is a man?" would be "here". "There" is semantically empty.

Just google _there + "dummy subject"_ and you will find plenty of sources that argue that both "there" and "it" are dummy subjects. Here are some of them:

http://dictionary.cambridge.org/grammar/british-grammar/dummy-subjects
http://awelu.srv.lu.se/grammar-and-words/selective-mini-grammar/pronouns/dummy-pronouns/
https://learnenglish.britishcouncil.org/en/english-grammar/pronouns/it-and-there


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## Dan2

_I saw the soldiers fight_ and_ I saw the soldiers fighting_ are indeed very close in meaning.  I do perceive an aspect difference however, which I'd attempt to capture as follows:
_I saw the soldiers fight = The soldiers fought; I saw that.
I saw the soldiers fighting = The soldiers were fighting; I saw that._

This seems to be a different construction from what you're calling ACI.  _I saw the soldiers fight/ing _implies that I saw the soldiers.  _I heard Bob sing/ing_ implies that I heard Bob.  On the other hand _I believe John to be intelligent_ does not imply that "I believe John".  It is rather the full content of the equivalent subordinate clause ("that John is intelligent") that I believe.  (BM makes essentially the same point above.)


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## Dan2

I was about to post some thoughts that DerFrosch has just expressed more eloquently than I would have...


DerFrosch said:


> Now, it does seem quite likely that this usage of "there", as I think you implied earlier, orginated in the unambiguous use of "there" as an adverb of place. (Maybe Dan can confirm this theory?)


I don't know enough about the history of English to _confirm _it, but I was about to suggest the same origin.


DerFrosch said:


> However, I think it's pretty clear that it's not used as an adverb today. Whereas the adverb "there" gives information about location, "there" as pronoun gives information about existence.


Exactly right.  In addition to your nice "There is a man here" example,  I would point to sentences like "There is no reason to believe that...".  Clearly there's no "there" there.


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## bearded

@DerFrosch 
I had never thought that 'there' could  ''officially'' be a dummy-subject pronoun.  Now I know better, and have to change my mind. Thanks to you and Dan.

@Dan 2
Re 'ACI' I couldn't have explained my point of view better! Thanks again.


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## berndf

Dan2 said:


> Exactly right. In addition to your nice "There is a man here" example, I would point to sentences like "There is no reason to believe that...". Clearly there's no "there" there.


_There _is still an adverb but in the older meaning _in or as the place_, _being around_. It is the same meaning as it, e.g., occurs in the German _Dasein_, literally, _the being around_.


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