ABSTRACT
Hay can occur in any non-continuous tense form. However, it does not mean ‘. . . is/are/were there’ = está/están/estaban (ahí/allí): the relationship between hay and estar is discussed further at 30.3. Examples of hay:
Había muchas chicas de mi edad y más There were many girls of my age and jóvenes (J. Marías, Sp.) younger Hay casos peores, hay quienes no pueden There are worse cases, there are people volver del exilio (A. Mastretta, Mex.) who can’t return from exile —¿Qué hay?) (¿Qué hubo?/¿Quiubo? in ‘What’s happening/How’re things? (Colombia and surrounding areas) Hubo muchas noches que salíamos a recorrer There were many nights when we su barrio (G. Cabrera Infante, Cu. went out for a walk round her part dialogue) of town había una vez . . ./érase una vez . . . (érase is once upon a time there was . . . here a grammatically unusual set formula)
(i) Hay has no plural in standard European Spanish and in formal Spanish everywhere: había tres chicas ‘there were three girls’, not ?habían . . .; hubo clases de italiano el año pasado ‘there were Italian classes last year’, not ?hubieron . . . But the plural construction is common in and near Catalonia and in the Americas, where it is deep-rooted and probably spreading in spontaneous, even educated, speech; but it is not found in formal writing, cf. dijeron que había muchos liberianos entre los combatientes (El Norte, Ve.) ‘they said there were many Liberians among the fi ghters’. The Academy recommends the singular. The form hubieron for hubo is less common than habían for había.
