We went swimming later in the afternoon, Jack and I
This sentence has been done something to.
It's an example of the syntactic rule of Right-Dislocation.
The sentence it's transformed from is
- Jack and I went swimming later in the afternoon.
The rule copies an emphasized Noun Phrase (which may be subject, object, or oblique) in a sentence, and repeats it, with a different intonation, for emphasis, at the end of the sentence. It's not a movement rule, but a copying rule, since the original NP remains in place as a pronoun.
There's also a rule of Left-Dislocation, which copies the NP to the beginning of the sentence.
Here's the entry from Haj Ross's list of The Top 200+ English Transformations
(p.4, categorized under "I. Emphasis; A. Pseudoclefts and Dislocations")
"6. LEFT AND RIGHT DISLOCATION:
My horse snores. ➞ My horse, he snores. (via LEFT DISLOCATION), or
My horse snores. ➞ He snores, my horse. (via RIGHT DISLOCATION)
In pseudoclefts, this rule will produce related sentences like the following:
Anne's brother left ➞ Anne's brother is the one who left ➞ Anne's brother, he's the one who left."
Some more examples of dislocated sentences:
- My Uncle Will hates the Dodgers a lot. (Base sentence)
- My Uncle Will, he hates the Dodgers a lot. (Left-Dislocation of Subject NP)
- The Dodgers, my Uncle Will hates them a lot. (" of Object NP)
- He hates the Dodgers a lot, my Uncle Will. (Right-Dislocation of Subject NP)
- My Uncle Will hates them a lot, the Dodgers. (" of Object NP)
As for why anyone would think any of these are more or less "formal" or "old-fashioned" than others, I can't really say. "Formal" and "old-fashioned" are not linguistic terms, anymore than "fad" or "fancy". Everybody has their own idea(s) about these terms.
I wouldn’t go along with that. Locative “there” is an adverb (some grammars call it a prep) rhyming with “dare” and meaning “in or at that place”. Dummy pronoun “there” on the other hand is pronounced unstressed with a reduced vowel and used to fill the syntactic subject position in existential clauses. So there is a difference in category, pronunciation and meaning.
Historically, dummy pronoun “there” derives from the locative “there”, but it has been bleached of its locative meaning and reanalysed as a pronoun.
The point is that the dummy pronoun “there” is without doubt the syntactic subject in an existential clause, no less than “it” is the subject in an extraposed construction. This can easily be proved:
“There” occupies the basic subject position before the verb, e.g. “There was a nurse present”.
In subject-auxiliary inversion constructions it occurs after the auxiliary, e.g. “Was there a nurse present?”
“There” occurs as subject in interrogative tags, e.g. “There was a nurse present, wasn’t there”?
Yes, the Oxford Online dictionary does indeed give existential “there” as an adverb, but it is wrong! As usual, it is just using ‘adverb’ as a classificatory dumping ground for any word that doesn’t easily fit into one of the other word categories. The examples above demonstrate without doubt that existential “there” is a pronoun. In any case, the function of subject can’t normally be realised by an adverb.
To complete the syntax, the subject of the non-existential construction becomes a displaced subject in the existential version:
[1] "Several windows were open".
[2] "There were several windows open".
In [2] “several windows” is analysed as a displaced subject (an internal complement of the verb), but it does correspond semantically to the subject in the non-existential counterpart [1].
Finally, you asked why "here" could not be the subject in:
"Here was not much snow".
"Here" is not a pronoun here, but an adverb (some call it a prep) so it can't possibly be subject. The syntactic subject in this example is "not much snow", and "here" is locative predicative complement. Think of it as "Not much snow was here". As further evidence, note that inversion would not be possible, *"Was here not much snow"?
Best Answer
When we think of "additional" or "extra" parts of the sentence like this we are thinking about functions not parts of speech or types of phrase.
The proper terms for this type of function is ADJUNCT. An adjunct is part of a sentence that is not necessary for the grammar. This means it is not necessary for the sentence to be grammatical or make sense.
The subject and object are COMPLEMENTS of the verb. Certain verbs set up slots for both subjects and objects; some for just subjects; some for subjects, objects and other complements. If part of a sentence is filling one of these slots, it is a complement of some description.
However, the sections in bold in the Original Poster's question:
... do not fill any of these slots. They are entirely extraneous in terms of the structure of the sentence. The sentences are perfectly grammatical without them:
It is this property of not filling a particular slot in a sentence or phrase which makes an adjunct an adjunct.
One last thing to mention is this. Often, when we talk about adjuncts, we are talking about the structure of the sentence in terms of immediate constituents of the verb phrase. However, strictly speaking, adjuncts can occur in any phrase. A good illustration is the Original Poster's third example:
Now if Mr Barber was going to the meeting with them, we would regard this as an adjunct in the verb phrase - in other words as a general adjunct of the sentence.
However, if they are travelling to the meeting without Mr Barber, but Mr Barber was at the meeting, then with Mr Barber is an adjunct in the noun phrase 'a meeting with Mr Barber'. Here the preposition phrase with Mr Barber is modifying the noun meeting, not the verb phrase were going to a meeting. We therefore say that with Mr Barber is an adjunct in the noun phrase. It is not filling any special slot in the phrase. Notice that this noun phrase, a meeting, is well-formed without the preposition phrase.
One last addendum: some people refer to adjuncts as ADVERBIALS. However, this is a bad term as it has associations with the word adverb. Now adverb is a part of speech, not a function in a sentence. Generally speaking, writers who use the term 'adverbial' are generally unable to distinguish whether they are talking about parts of speech, types of phrase or functions. The terms is confusing and those who use it are - more often than not - unwittingly confused! It is a term that should be banished from any serious discussion of English grammar.