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Yoong Liat Posted 19 years ago
Grammar

There is / are a ...

0There 01b00is 02b00a dog and two cats in his house. 02br
02br
00There 01b00are02b00 a dog and two cats in his house. 02br
02br
00Which is the correct sentence or are both okay?0-
  

Top answer

0 01blockquote 01cite 10Yoong Liat12cite 12br 10There 11b 10is 12b 10a dog and two cats in his house. 12br 12br 10There 11b 10are12b 10 a dog and two cats in his house. )02br 02br 00Let's start with a couple of links to my favourite sources:02br 02br 01a 05000 02a 02br 02br 01a 05100 02a 02br 02br 00According to the first text, there are two rules that seem to clash in your example.

— Mr Patrick

  • 0 01blockquote 01cite 10Yoong Liat12cite 12br 10There 11b 10is 12b 10a dog and two cats in his house.
  • 12br 12br 10There 11b 10are12b 10 a dog and two cats in his house.
  • )02br 02br 00Let's start with a couple of links to my favourite sources:02br 02br 01a 05000 02a 02br 02br 01a 05100 02a 02br 02br 00According to the first text, there are two rules that seem to clash in your example.
  • One rule says that compound subjects connected by 01font 00and02font 00 should take a plural verb.
  • 02br 02br 00I think that in your example the first rule will take precedence over the second, and therefore the verb has to be in plural.
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10 Answers
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0 01blockquote
01cite10Yoong Liat12cite12br
10There 11b10is 12b10a dog and two cats in his house. 12br
12br
10There 11b10are12b10 a dog and two cats in his house. 12br
12br
10Which is the correct sentence or are both okay?12br
12br
12blockqu
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0Hi Patrick02br
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00You may call me 'Yoong Liat'. 02br
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00I failed to find any sentence starting with "There is" in the two websites provided by you. I would be grateful if you could extract that portion for me if there is.0-
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0 Yoong Liat,02br
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00I found this part which might be of interest.02br
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00Under notional agreement - "Similarly, there are some nouns like 01i00mumps02i00 and 01i00news02i00 that are plural in form but take a singular verb: 01i00The mumps was once a common childhood disease.02i00
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0Hi Wwwdotcom02br
02br
00There 01b00is 02b00a dog and two cats in his house. 02br
02br
00There 01b00are02b00 a dog and two cats in his house.02br
02br
00Based on the information you have, what is your conclusion? Which sentence is correct?0-
0
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0 "There are a dog and two cats in his house."02br
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00Saying "are" then "a" just sounds wrong. I would not expect to see this when reading an article or watching the news. However, a writer of a story might want to give an image of a dog and two cats together as a group. When we look at it this way, an argument can be made to use plural.02br
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1b01font00Hi Wwwdotcom02font02b02br
02br
01b01font00In AmE, I understand the plural verb 'are' is allowed. By the way, the verb problem arises because the sentence starts with 'There'. 02font02b0-
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0 Any overall problem comes from the sentence not an individual word. I get so lost in Japanese because I become fixated on one word in the sentence instead of reading the sentence as an unbreakable whole like with a word itself and not worrying about the letters that make up that word.0-
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0Hi Wwwdotcom02br
02br
00The pen and pencil are cheap.02br
02br
00The watch and pen are on the table.02br
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00Sentences without 'There" are not so confusing. But throw in 'There' and BrE and AmE differ in usage.02br
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00As I said, "There is a dog and two cats in his house." (BrE)02br
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00
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0Hi Yoong Liat,02br
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00I am sorry. I completely overlooked the fact that both your examples were of 01font00existential there02font00 construction. 02br
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00Have you seen this discussion?02br
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01a
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0Hi Patrick02br
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00Thank you very much for the website.02br
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00It is now clear that "There is a dog and two cats."02br
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00I've one question: Is that a BrE forum?0-
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