Questions & Answers about Der findes en løsning.
Why does the sentence start with der?
Here der is an existential or dummy subject, like English there in There is... or There exists....
It does not mean there as a place in this sentence.
So in Der findes en løsning, der is just there because Danish often uses it when introducing the existence of something.
Does der refer to a location here?
No. In this sentence, der does not mean a place.
Compare:
- Der ligger bogen. = The book is lying there.
- Here der is locational.
- Der findes en løsning. = There exists a solution.
- Here der is only grammatical; it does not point to any place.
The learner question is very common because English also uses there in both ways.
What does findes mean here?