Existential and Presentational daar

When you want to say that something exists — "there is a problem," "there were too many people" — Afrikaans does almost exactly what English does: it puts a small word meaning "there" at the front and follows it with a verb. That word is daar. But behind this familiar-looking construction sit two features that surprise English speakers: the verb never changes for singular versus plural, and the same daar can do something English struggles to match — drop a brand-new person or thing into a scene with a punch of immediacy ("daar kom die bus"). This page covers the existential daar is / daar was and the livelier presentational daar with motion and posture verbs.

daar fills the first slot, and the verb inverts

Afrikaans main clauses obey the V2 rule: the finite verb sits in second position, and whatever lands in first position pushes the subject behind the verb. Existential daar is simply a constituent that occupies that first slot. It is not the subject — it is a placeholder — but it counts as the fronted element, so the verb comes next and the real subject follows.

Read the slots: daar is first, the finite verb is is second, and the logical subject 'n probleem comes third. This is the same machinery as ordinary inversion — nothing special is happening to the verb; daar has just claimed the launch slot the way môre or gister might.

Notice in the second example that the negation wraps the whole clause with the closing nie, exactly as it would in any other sentence. The existential frame does not disturb negation; daar simply opens the clause.

Why daar is, not "daar are": number invariance

Here is the first real divergence from English. English makes the existential verb agree with the logical subject: there *is a problem but there **are problems. Afrikaans does not. The verb *is (and its past was) is fixed regardless of whether what follows is singular or plural. Afrikaans verbs do not conjugate for number at all — ek is, ons is, die mense is — so there is simply no plural form for the existential to reach for.

In both sentences the logical subject is plural (baie mense, twee koeldranke) yet the verb stays is. There is no "daar are." This is one of the few places where the absence of English-style agreement actively helps the learner: you never have to scan ahead to decide between singular and plural before choosing the verb.

The full present/past pattern is small enough to memorise as a block:

Presentational daar: introducing new referents

The existential daar is asserts that something exists. Presentational daar does something subtler and more vivid: it walks a new participant onto the stage of the discourse, usually with an intransitive verb of motion, posture, or appearance — kom (come), staan (stand), lê (lie), sit (sit), gaan (go), kom aan (arrive). The verb is no longer the colourless is; it is a real verb that tells you how the new thing enters.

The logical subject ('n man, 'n bus, jou sleutels) is brand-new information, freshly introduced, and the verb still obeys V2 in second slot behind daar. English does have a near-equivalent — the "here comes / there stands" presentational — but it is restricted and slightly literary. Afrikaans uses this pattern freely and everywhere, including in plain speech.

The narrative power of daar + motion verb

This is where daar outruns the textbook gloss "there is." With a motion verb, presentational daar is a storytelling device: it makes the listener feel the new arrival as it happens, almost like a camera cutting to it. Compare the flat report with the vivid version:

The second sentence is what a real speaker says at the bus stop. Daar front-loads the excitement; the definite die bus even works here because the event of its arrival is the new thing. In narration, this construction drives the pace of a scene:

Reducing all of this to "there is" loses the point. The motion-verb presentational is a deictic gesture in words: it points. This is why it lives so naturally in spoken storytelling, and why you will hear it constantly in children's books and family anecdotes. For the broader system of pointing words (hier, daar, ginds) and how they encode distance, see place deixis.

Distinguishing daar "there is" from daar "over there"

The same word daar is also a plain locative adverb meaning "(over) there," and learners must keep the two senses apart. Locative daar answers where? and points to a spot away from the speaker; existential/presentational daar answers what exists / what's appearing? and is a near-empty placeholder.

In the first, daar is locative — it points to the garden as a location, and the subject die kinders is already known. In the second, daar is presentational — it opens the clause and introduces kinders as new. A useful diagnostic: if you can replace daar with hier ("here") or ginds ("yonder") and keep the meaning, it is the locative one; if daar is just launching the sentence and could be glossed "there is/are," it is the existential. The locative uses are covered under adverbs of place; the impersonal verb behaviour shared with dit is covered separately in impersonal dit and daar.

Common mistakes

Key takeaways

• daar fills the first slot and triggers ordinary inversion: the verb is second, the logical subject follows.
• The existential verb is number-invariant — always daar is / daar was, never a plural "are," because Afrikaans verbs do not mark number.
• Presentational daar introduces a new, indefinite referent, usually with an intransitive verb of motion or posture: daar staan 'n man, daar kom 'n bus.
• With a motion verb, daar becomes a vivid narrative pointer — daar kom die bus! — that reduces poorly to a bare "there is."
• Keep existential daar apart from locative daar ("over there"): if hier/ginds can replace it, it is the locative; see adverbs of place and place deixis.