Posted by Bill A on April 28, 2008, 21:34:04, in reply to "Re: There vs. it"
"There" and "It" aren't ALWAYS meaningless at the beginning of a sentence. "There is the green tower" implies that its location is being indicated. "It is the green tower" implies an answer to a previous question.
"It" will normally take the place of a noun. In the previous example ("It is 5:30"), "it" means "the time".
It isn't necessary to say "the time" since "time" is implied by the rest of the sentence.
(Hmmm... In the above sentence, "it" is much closer to being meaningless. But, the sentence could be rewritten as "saying 'the time' isn't necessary...", so "it" means "saying 'the time'".)
In the original example ("There is a problem."), saying "it is a problem" would usually get the response "WHAT is a problem?"
Using "it" implies a specific thing, but "there" is much more general (a state of existence) unless it is indicating a location.
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