So with a verb like “make,” “watch” or “teach,” you can get a simple subject-plus-verb-plus-object sentence structure. Copular verbs express being, seeming or the senses.

So-called Al-Sayyid Bedouin Sign Language also builds sentences around a subject-object-verb construction. “Consistent word order appears early in a new sign language,” she says.

In the original sentence, the subject was the pronoun “there.” Technically, this is called the “existential there,” which is just a structure we use to say something exists.

Karen Lahousse, Specificational Sentences and the Influence of Information Structure on (Anti-)Connectivity Effects, Journal of Linguistics, Vol. 45, No. 1 (Mar., 2009), pp. 139-166 ...