Anonymous

“He said there were   had been an attempted robbery at the store two weeks earlier and a $160,000 robbery late last year.

”

I get the feeling he understands that; I think he believes that there are two subject complements (joined by and), requiring the plural verb 'were.'

BillJ

“

Thanks for spotting that, English 1b3.

 

He said there was an attempted robbery at the store two weeks earlier and a $160,000 robbery late last year.

 

I see this as a compound sentence comprising two main (independent) clauses but by a process called ellipsis, part of the second clause has been omitted (to avoid repetition). Once the ellipsis has been ‘filled out’, the sequence 'and a $160,000 robbery late last year’ can stand as a main clause:

                                                                

[He said there was an attempted robbery at the store two weeks earlier] and [he said there was a $160,000 robbery late last year].

 

From that, you can see that there are two independent clauses (shown in square brackets), each having its own verb/complement agreement. In that particular sentence, each clause has singular verb/complement agreement, but it needn't necessarily be like that:

 

[He said there was an attempted robbery at the store two weeks earlier] and [he said there were two robberies late last year].

 

Sorry if I missed the original poster's point.

 

 

Best

 

BillJ 

 

”

Hi, BillJ

I know this is a trivial point, but I would be more inclined to say the sentence has only one main clause, but with two noun clauses as objects of the verb said:

He said(that)  there was an attempted robbery at the store two weeks earlier and (that) there was a $160,000 robbery late last year.

It doesn't change anything anyway. Just something I noticed.

Cheers