The 't' in a sentence

[Sarah]

Hello,

Could anyone tell me, please what is the meaning of     't'  in these sentences?

 

Qu' y a-t-il sur la table?(What there has it .......)

Y a-t-il un cahier sur la table?(There  has it....)

Y a--t-il des cahiers sur la table?(there has it...)

Combien de couteaux y a-t-il sur la table? (there has it)

Are the word-by-word translations correct? 

 

Thanks

[George Hunt]

I don't think it has a meaning as such.It is more a use.I think it allows you to  use "a" before "il"  more easily.

The word-by-word translations are correct but I assume you know that is not what  the phrase actually means.

[Christine]

George is right, the euphonic "t" is used just because it sounds better. Here's another forum's thread on the subject: http://forum.wordreference.com/showthread.php?t=3669 

As he said, word-by-word is correct, but the meanings are, respectively, "What is (there) [on the table]?" and "Is there [...]?"

[Sarah]

Thank you both for your replies. They are very helpful.    But  the 't' is not optional, is  it?

Thanks

[Christine]

You're welcome :-)

No, it's not optional. Just know that this is more a written form, and not usually used when you speak. Orally, you'd probably hear: "Qu'est-ce qu'il y a sur la table?" and "Est-ce qu'il y a un cahier sur la table?", which mean exactly the same as "(Qu')y a-t-il...", but is more common in everyday speech.

[Neil Coffey]

Hi Sarah--

Juts to expand on the information already provided by George and Christine.

The pattern is basically that whenever you use inversion, if you have a third person verb inverted with "il", "elle" or "on", the verb must end in a "t" sound.

With a form such as "perd-il" or "veut-elle", i.e. where the basic verb form aleady ends in a "d" or "t" in the spelling, there isn't a problem: the "d" and "t" are OK to represent a "t" sound when the verb and pronoun are inverted.

But in a form such as "il donne" > "*donne-il", there's an issue because speakers in this case actually pronounce a "t" sound between the "donne" and the "il", as though the verb was "donnet-il". (Once upon a time, it actually was, but as the language has evolved, the "t" sound is now not generally pronounced on the end of a word, and so usually the written form is nowadays "donne": inversion is an exception.) Because the usual written verb form is "donne", not "donnet", in the spelling of the inverted form, something of a 'fudge' is used, and you write "donne-t-il".

Basically, whenever the written form of the verb doesn't already end in a "t" or "d" and you invert it with "il", "elle" or "on", then you insert "-t-" between the verb and pronoun. This applies MAINLY to -er verbs, but also to a few irregulars as you see in your examples.

The thing to understand is that it's just a spelling fudge: the "-t-" doesn't actually mean anything as such.