Found:
expletive
SYNTAX: grammatical element having no semantic content and occurring in theta-bar positions. EXAMPLE: there in (i) and it in (ii) are expletives.
(i) There is a man in the room (ii) It seems that John is ill
LIT. | Chomsky, N. (1993) Chomsky, N. (1986a) Chomsky, N. (1981) |