Talk:y avoir

y avoir
"Il y a" is a set phrase in French, just as the equivalent "there is" and "there are" are in English. "Y avoir" is not, and is meaningless as an entry.

Now, the usage notes say that that the subject is always "il", indicating that this is only used in the third person, and gives an example ("Il semble y avoir un problème" ["there seems to be a problem], which is good French). This clearly indicates that the infinitive form, which is much less common than "il y a" and its equivalents in other tenses, should be given as "il y avoir".

"Y avoir" is definitely wrong because makes no sense alone; it requires "il" and must be used with a finite verb that intervenes (as in "il semble y avoir") or that precedes the phrase (as in "pourrait-il y avoir" [could there be]), just as "there be" cannot stand alone in English: "there seems to be"; "could there be"; "I asked that there be flowers at the wedding", but not "there be a problem".

Furthermore, "for there to be" is given as the translation, but this is incorrect. The French for "for there to be" is "pour qu'il y ait", not "y avoir" (nor even "pour y avoir"); as the phrase begins with a subject pronoun ("il"), "pour que" must be used, which requires the subjunctive. The phrase "pour y avoir" means "to have ... to it/them", as in "pour y avoir accès" ("to have access to it/them"). The translation "there be" would be more correct, but as I have already pointed out, this doesn't exist by itself in English.

Perhaps it is appropriate to have "il y avoir" as a cross-reference to "il y a", and maybe likewise for the forms in other tenses ("il y aura" [future], "il y avait" [imperfect], "il y a eu" [perfect], etc), as we already do for the inverted form ("y a-t-il"). "Y avoir" on its own, however, is nonsensical and must go.

&mdash; Paul G 10:28, 3 September 2007 (UTC)


 * I completely disagree (as you might guess from my having created the entry). "Y avoir" is the infinitive form of this common idiom, and "il semble y avoir" alone gets . "Il y avoir" makes no sense; it does get a lot of hits on Google Books, but if you go through them you'll see that none are real: all are scannos for "il y avoit" (which is an archaic spelling of "il y avait"), or fragments of "peut-il y avoir", "doit-il y avoir", etc., or pedagogical exercises using infinitives which the student is expected to replace with the correctly conjugated form, or whatnot. "Y avoir" is an impersonal verbal idiom, the only wrinkle with which being that it's hard or impossible to translate because English doesn't have an equivalent (since we use a different construction entirely). You could just as easily RFD the first sense of the verb "rain", saying that it makes no sense and the entry should be at "it rain". —Ruakh TALK 14:38, 3 September 2007 (UTC)


 * P.S. Not that it matters, but "for there to be" can also be simply "qu'il y ait": "I want for there to be an explanation, but I suspect there isn't one" = « Je veux qu'il y ait une explication, mais je soupçonne qu'il n'y en a pas ». —Ruakh TALK 14:38, 3 September 2007 (UTC)


 * I’m French, and I completely agree with Ruakh: il y avoir makes no sense (the comparison with it rain is very appropriate). And the infinitive does exist. Is this verb always used with il? This is a bit complex. While the y may be pronounced as a separate vowel, il y a is usually pronounced as il ya. And, when pronounced this way, il is often omitted in colloquial spoken French. Although this is spoken French, it is sometimes written and, when written, a ’ is often inserted between y and a : il y a becomes y’a, il y avait becomes y’avait... The reason is that this makes the omission of il easy to understand. The infinitive for this written spoken form is less usual, but also exists, e.g. in the phrase : Va y’avoir du sport. Does this imply that y’avoir might be created as well as y avoir? Probably, but this is much more disputable. Lmaltier 16:42, 4 September 2007 (UTC)
 * Keep per Ruakh. bd2412 T 20:05, 8 September 2007 (UTC)
 * Paul G above says, “"Y avoir" is definitely wrong because makes no sense alone”. I don't agree with that assessment.  Otherwise, we have to delete words like "an" and "to".  Anyway, I agree with the keep recommendation, as y avoir is clearly the lemma form and we should create the lemma entry there be to help readers understand sentences like, “How many guests will there be in your party tonight?” Rod (A. Smith) 20:31, 8 September 2007 (UTC)
 * there be was also used in English, e.g. "there be dragons". Thryduulf 20:33, 8 September 2007 (UTC)
 * It seems to me that in the English phrase 'there is', 'there' acts as a subject pronoun. This becomes blatant when you start making complex phrases, as it inverts with the conjugated verb in a question, such as "are there any carrpts for the soup?", or as in Rodasmith's example, "How many guests will there be in your party tonight?". It also acts as a pronoun when substituted into set phrases, such as 'to have + infinitive' to show necessity, as in "there have to be carrots in the soup". It can form compound tenses and take helping verbs, such as "There have been carrots in every pot of soup I've ever made", and "There can be peas in the soup, as long as there are carrots." In all of these cases, the infinitive is simply "to be", with the subject being "there". In French it's completely different. As stated, the subject is always 'il', and the infinitive is 'y avoir'. Though I am not French, in what limited French i know know, every phrase i can think of follows that rule, whether the 'il' is directly stated or not. Keep y avoir, maybe move 'there be' to 'to be'. Phsyron 04:21, 9 September 2007 (UTC)


 * Kept per consensus, and because the entry exists on a few other Wiktionaries, including fr. Translations changed to there be. --Keene 01:53, 8 January 2008 (UTC)

Conjugation section
another suggestion is this skanky-looking but more accurate table:--Keene 02:26, 8 January 2008 (UTC)


 * infinitive| y avoir
 * past participle | il y a eu
 * indicative present | il y a
 * indicative imperfect | il y avait
 * future | il y aura
 * conditional | il y aurait
 * past historic | il y eut
 * subjunctive present | il y ait
 * subjunctive imperfect| il y eût

Requests for deletion - kept
Kept. See archived discussion of January 2008. 07:00, 23 January 2008 (UTC)