The Meaning of There: From Identifiable to Vague Location to Existence, Purpose, and Support

This study investigates the range of polysemous usages and variable structures of the <italic>be there</italic> construction in English. Using a corpus of 112,345,722 words from the British National Corpus, we identified 16,111 instances of <italic>be there</italic>. From these, a randomized sample of 500 instances was analyzed for their usages and functions and categorized into five basic categories. The categories range in designating the meanings of <italic>there</italic> from concrete, specific, identifiable locations to vaguer indicators of place to abstract references of place that signal the meanings of benefaction (i.e., be <italic>there</italic> for someone) and purpose (i.e., <italic>be there</italic> to do/accomplish something). We explore the meaning of <italic>there</italic>, progressing from designated identifiable concrete space through abstract, non-identifiable locations, to hybridized meanings of vague location bordering on mere existence, and finally to the metaphorical extensions of <italic>there</italic> that express concepts of support and purpose. <italic>There</italic> in English is unique because just this single word carries such varied meanings, thus posing challenges for L2 learners of English.