There is/are

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Selvakumar

#178988 Wed, 04 Jan 06 05:09 PM

While my friend strongly feels that it should be "is" in the following sentence, I feel, grammar demands that it ought to be "are"

1. There is/are a cooler and a cooker in the room.

2. There is/are a letter for Jane and a message for Christy.

In the first sentence, there are two things --- a cooler and a cooker. My argument, therefore, is the verb should be "are"? If "is" is correct, then, what about in the following sentences?

3. There ____ a ruler, a pencil, an eraser, a sharpener and a nail clipper on the table.

4.Sgt John: "Cpl Mary, have we found anything that would be of interest to us?"

Cpl Mary: "Well, there _____ a letter to James, a message on the fridge for his son, Vincent, a pen knife on the floor and some marbles in the chair".

Please help clear my doubts.

Selvakumar

Joined on Fri, Dec 30 2005

Junior Member (52)

Grammar, Verbs

Philip

#178995 Wed, 04 Jan 06 05:25 PM

Selvakumar wrote:

While my friend strongly feels that it should be "is" in the following sentence, I feel, grammar demands that it ought to be "are"

1. There is/are a cooler and a cooker in the room.

2. There is/are a letter for Jane and a message for Christy.

In the first sentence, there are two things --- a cooler and a cooker. My argument, therefore, is the verb should be "are"? If "is" is correct, then, what about in the following sentences?

3. There ____ a ruler, a pencil, an eraser, a sharpener and a nail clipper on the table.

4.Sgt John: "Cpl Mary, have we found anything that would be of interest to us?"

Cpl Mary: "Well, there _____ a letter to James, a message on the fridge for his son, Vincent, a pen knife on the floor and some marbles in the chair".

Please help clear my doubts.

Technically, I believe, the plural should be used. Most of us do not use it, however. I'll be watching what the "experts" have to say about this, as the question came up in my camp just recently.

Philip

Joined on Thu, Jun 23 2005

USA Pacific Northwest (Seattle)

Veteran Member (6,333)

At reise er at leve! - H. C. Andersen

Grammar, Verbs, Plurals

Ruslana

#179001 Wed, 04 Jan 06 05:42 PM

I don't know what verb native speakers would use but I would say ARE.

Ruslana

Joined on Sat, Dec 17 2005

Russia

Senior Member (3,197)

"When the power of love overcomes the love of power, the world will know peace", - Jimi Hendrix

Verbs

Sam C

#179014 Wed, 04 Jan 06 06:47 PM

'is', every time. 'are' sounds odd, if not ungrammatical, to me. i would also write 'is'.

Selvakumar wrote:
While my friend strongly feels that it should be "is" in the following sentence, I feel, grammar demands that it ought to be "are"

depends what you mean by 'grammar' - a term with various meanings.

any comprehensive grammar (a book describing some linguistic grammar) worth its salt will have something to say on subj.-verb concord with existential 'there' (them's the search terms, btw). if yours doesn't, burn it.

sam

Sam C

Joined on Mon, Dec 19 2005

New Member (45)

Grammar, Verbs

Ruslana

#179039 Wed, 04 Jan 06 07:27 PM

Selvakumar, sorry, I was wrong!

I have just read in an English Grammar text-book that it is correct to use IS there. Absolutely!!!

And you should use IS in the examples #3 and #4, too.

:-)

Ruslana

Grammar, English Grammar

Ikia

#179128 Thu, 05 Jan 06 12:21 AM

YOU win.

When you have there plus verb plus subject, the verb agrees with the subject as you suspected..

If the subject is plural, use are. If the subject is singular, use is.

There ARE a cooker and a cooler in the room. (a cooker and a cooler--subject; are--verb.

Ikia

Joined on Thu, Dec 8 2005

Junior Member (58)

Verbs, Plurals

MrPedantic

#179139 Thu, 05 Jan 06 12:49 AM

I think I'd say "there is":

1. There is a cooler and (there is) a cooker in the room.

MrP

MrPedantic

Joined on Tue, Oct 12 2004

Veteran Member (12,168)

...opella forensis / adducit febris...

Philip

#179148 Thu, 05 Jan 06 01:06 AM

MrPedantic wrote:

I think I'd say "there is":

1. There is a cooler and (there is) a cooker in the room.

MrP

I don't know if your "understood repetition" of the intro is correct or not, but it's going to be the reason I offer in the future. Thanks much, MrP!

Philip

paco2004

#179287 Thu, 05 Jan 06 11:21 AM

Selvakumar wrote:

While my friend strongly feels that it should be "is" in the following sentence, I feel, grammar demands that it ought to be "are"
1. There is/are a cooler and a cooker in the room.
In the first sentence, there are two things --- a cooler and a cooker. My argument, therefore, is the verb should be "are"? If "is" is correct, then, what about in the following sentences?

Hello guys

We have talked about this issue twice or three times as far as I know. But I'd like to put some tips I've got since the last time.

First of all, I'd like to quote what is written in CGEL by Quirk et al. It discussed this in the section of "existential there".

It (= the there of existential sentences) often determines concord, governing a singular form of the verb even when the following 'notional subject' is plural.
"There's some people in the waiting people" (informal)
occurs alongside
"There are some people in the waiting people".

Quirk didn't distinguish "presentational there" from "existential there". According to Ward and Birner (1993), the version of "there is" can be allowed to plural notional subjects even in formal speech when the construct is used as an answer to a question which demands a list of items.
　　(OK) "Who was at the party last night?" "There was Jim, MrP, Pieanne, Khoff and Ruslana".
　　(??) "There was Jim, MrP, Pieanne, Khoff and Ruslana at the party I went to last night".

paco

paco2004

Joined on Wed, Nov 17 2004

Senior Member (4,095)

In Japan today even dogs are learning how to bow-wow in English.

Grammar, Verbs, Plurals

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