EXPLETIVES

Expletives are “empty words.”

Rather than providing a grammatical or structural meaning like other structure parts of speech, expletives are empty words that allow us to manipulate sentences in a variety of ways.

1. There is an expletive when it is used with any form of be as the main verb.

As an expletive, there moves the subject to a position after the verb.

2. That and whether are expletives when they introduce nominal clauses.

3. Or is an expletive when it is used to introduce an explanatory appositive (renamer).

4. As is an expletive when it is used to introduce an objective complement.