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In article <1992Jul24.032652.15096@bnr.ca> gryphon@crchh424.BNR.CA (Joe Widows) writes:

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   From: gryphon@crchh424.BNR.CA (Joe Widows)
   Newsgroups: sci.lang
   Date: 24 Jul 92 03:26:52 GMT
   References: <1992Jul22.234558.15054@alf.uib.no> <8200@amsaa-cleo.brl.mil> <1992Jul21.190619.21438@alf.uib.no> <92204.135724GRV101@psuvm.psu.edu>
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    > In the examples with 'there' in the 'subject', I would like to point out
    > that this is an idiomatic expression of the same class as 'It's raining'
    > or 'It's snowing' or 'There's trouble here.'  These kinds of expressions
    > carry 'META-BAGGAGE' or context information supplied by the listener.
    > 
    > Most of the conflict with number and verb seem to be in constructs where
    > one might say "THERE'S" < list or conjucate of items> < some consequence>
    > 'There's anger and frustration, here'  Seems to be of the idomatic form.
    > Can you tell me why this is 'non-standard' English?  Idioms are tricky,
    > we say one thing and mean something else, and frequently impose structure
    > that is only convenient.
    > 
    >	     widows
    >  Linguist in the dark.

   >DISCLAIMER:  BNR builds telephones, not opinions.
   >ANTIDISCLAIMER:  The wrong stuff is mine, (the right stuff, too)

I tend to agree with this last comment.  It seems to me that "there is"
and "there are" are moving toward an idomatic usage where they merge and
number is no longer significant.  I see this as analagous to the Spanish
word "hay" which has the meanings "there is" and "there are".

Out of curiousity, does anyone know if these Spanish forms historically
descended from number inflected forms?
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