Among the mIE languages, Germanic, Fench and Italian are unique in having two ways of expressing existence or non-existence: 1) with an expletive subject, 2) the indefinite pronoun is the subject.
There is nothing in this box.
Nothing‘s in this box.
The first sentence is neutral, simply asserting the absence of an object, while the second, which is virtually synonymous with the first, focuses on ‘nothing’:
–How about in that box?
–No, nothing’s in this box.
In English the expletive there variant is used much more often than the IP subject variant. Most other mIE languages do not have two options to express (non)existence. French and Spanish have developed the use of an expletive subject while all other mIE languages are content to simply use the indefinite pronoun for the subject.
English There is nothing in the box.
Dutch Er zit niets in de doos. [it sits nothing in the box]
French Il n’y a rien dans la boite. [it not+there has nothing in the box]
Italian Non c‘è niente nella scatola. [not there+is nothing in+the box]
Spanish No hay nada en la caja. [hot has nothing in the box]
Irish Níl aon rud sa bhosca. [not+is any thing in+the box]
Latvian Kastītēloc nekā nav. [(in+) box of+nothing is+not]
Greek Den yparchei tipota sto kouti. [not exists nothing in+the box]
Kurmanji Di sindoqê de tiştek tune. [in the+box1 in something is+not]
Persian Hiči čizi dar jabe nist. [any thing in box not+is]
Hindu Ḍibbe mẽ kuch bhī nahī̃ hai. [box in anything even not is]
1 The absence of an indefinite suffix inidicates the noun is definite.
THINKING IT OVER: Speakers of languages that use an expletive to indicate (non) existence have no sense that they are stating location twice. For example, English there also functions as an adverb of place making There is nothing in this box. literally ‘in this place is nothing in this box.’ Modern English however simply treats ‘there + is’ as a way to introduce the existence/presence of something.
“Few languages are as obsessed as English is with inserting a dummy subject.”1
“I’m a native English speaker and I never noticed it until I started studying Estonian. In English, so often we will insert “there is” where it is unnecessary. For example, “There are a lot of people driving red cars today”, as opposed to “A lot of people are driving red cars today”. Well, where are the people driving the red cars? It seems to allude to a location that doesn’t exist.”2
- https://teflconcourse.com/training/inservice/lexicogrammar/existential_there_it ↩︎
- https://www.reddit.com/r/linguistics/comments/5cafrb/why_does_english_use_there_and_it_so_much/ ↩︎
GRAMMAR
Expletive subjects are those which carry no meaning. They are sometimes referred to as ‘dummy’ subjects. They are simply words used as a place-holder in the sentence: It is cold outside. There were a few who disagreed.