1. TEFL & ICT Master program
The Teacher’s Grammar of English
by: Ron Cowan
Chapter 7:
Nonreferencial It & There
Presented by: Nadia BAT
Supervised by: - Jennifer Evans
- Youssef Tamer

2. Nonreferencial It
Exercise 1 Outline
Nonreferencial There
Nonreferencial There in discourse
Additional facts about Nonreferencial there
Exercise 2
Problems that ESL / EFL Ss have with
Nonreferencial IT & There

3. Nonreferencial IT & There
o The words it and there commonly function as
pronouns.
o They refer to some other element in the same
sentence or in the preceding discourse.
o Sentences beginning with nonreferencial it
and there occur frequently in all registers of
spoken and written English.

4. Nonreferencial It
Referncial/ Sentences with Special constractions with
Nonreferencial? Nonreferencial It Nonreferencial It
Weather Cleft sentences:
He picked up a flat stone Temperature
and skipped it across the Time It’s my brother who got
surface of water. Days of the week and Holydays married,not me.
Distance and environment It was 6 months ago that
he got his promotion.
It’s raining pretty hard. It’s sunny today
Is it raining? What time is it? Extraposed subject clause:
It’s been raining all day. It’s 27 degrees out there
It was raining earlier,isn’t it? I don’t know what day of It’s interesting [that you
It’s a rainy day. the week it is. beleive that].
It are raining. It’s Mother’s day It’s unusual [to find such
It’s hot in here. wisdom in someone so
young].

5. Exercise 1
Referencial or NonReferencial?

6. It was so smoky in that room that my eyes
were watering.
Nonreferencial

7. The lost and found department called.they think they found
your watch, but you will have to go and identify it.
Referencial

8. A: Are you going out?
B: Are you kidding? It’s freezing out there.
Nonreferencial

9. He is so disorganized that he doesn’t even know
what day it is.
Nonreferencial

10. He found a good solid stock and invested all his
money in it.
Referencial

11. Nonreferencial there
Referncial/ Contractions and There
Subject-Verb Agreement
Nonreferencial? Occurrences
referencial: With is before ingularNP the verbs that follows there
With are before plural NP
With modals
should agree in number with
Put the boxes over there With modal verbs the NP after it
 units of measurement,currency&time
• There’s a hole in my life.
• There’re lots of deer. • There are two beds in any
Nonreferencial: • There’s been some criticism room
of his book. •There is a crack in the
Are there any cookies left? • There must be another seiling
There is something we need solution to this problem
to talk about. •There was 20 dollars in his
pocket

12. Nonreference there in discourse
Sentences with nonreferencial there serve
several basic functions:

13. Intoducing new information:
There is a new sheriff in town. And he’s going to
clean all the corruption

14. Responding to questions about existence of
something:
A:Where can i get some money?
B: there’s a bank overe there.

15. Shifting the focus of a discussion:
Using there to introduce new paragraph.

16. Calling something to mind:
A: I can’t decide where to take Debbie for lunch.
B: well, there’s that restaurant we ate at last
month

17. Additional facts about nonreferencial there

18. Nonreferencial there sentences and their
counterparts:
Some sentences with nonreferencial there
can be rewritten as sentences with indifinite
subjects( a/an or some and a noun).

19. • There is a man standing under the tree.
• A man is standing under the tree.
•There are some flowers in front of your
house.
•Some flowers are in front of your house.

20. • There was an accident on the freeway last night.
• An accident was on the freeway last night.
no
When the NP after be in a sentence with nonreferencial
there describes an event or an occurance, it does not have
a grammatical counterpart sentece with an indefinite
subject

21. Indefinite NP Relative clause
• There are [[several possibilities][ that we haven’t considered]].
• Several possibilities are that we haven’t considered

22. Nonreferencial there with verbs other than be:
 There appeared a strange face in the window.
 once upon a time, there lived ab ancient mariner
 There remain only two more issues to dealt with

23. Idioms with nonreferencial there:
There’s + no +present participle verb form
• There’s no telling what he will do.
• There’s no getting out of it.

24. Exercise 2

25. Is there any gas in that can cover there?
No,there isn’t.
Grammatical

26. There’s quite a lot of really strange looking characters hanging
around in the supermarket parking lot .
ungrammatical

27. There’s a number of ways to do that
ungrammatical

28. She told me that there was a dozen place mats
in that drawer.
Grammatical

29. Problems that EFl/ESL Students have
with nonreferencial IT & There

30. The absence of nonreferencial IT in many
languages:
• Today very hot.
• It’s very hot today.

31. Missing relative pronoun in nonreferencial there
is/are sentences (chinese).
• There are many varieties of cancer exist.
• There was a tire hanging from the roof served
as their playground.
There are many varieties of cancer that exist.
There was a tire hanging from the roof served
as their playground.

32. Incorrect use of polarity items with nonreferencial
there (Korean):
• There’s no any questions which check students’
reading comprehension.
• There’s no particular difficulties in understanding
cultural background.

33. Thank you!