What is wrong with this sentence

Question

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

Ed_shaw · Accepted Answer

there (was) an
last year (.)

Philip · Answer

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

BillJ · Answer

Hi

This error is all about 'grammatical concord' (or agreement) where two units in a sentence need to have a certain 'feature' in common to be grammatical. Subject/verb agreement is the most common source of error, but verb/noun complement errors do sometimes occur as in your example.

Specifically, you cannot use the 3rd person plural form of the verb 'were' with the singular noun complement 'an attempted robbery'. The correct forms are:

'...there were (plural) attempted robberies (plural)...' (means more than one robbery)

'...there was (singular) an attempted robbery (singular)...' (means only one robbery)

Best

BillJ

English 1b3 · Answer

Hi, BillJ

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 · Answer

Thanks for spotting that, English 1b3.

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

English 1b3 · Answer

BillJThanks 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

What is wrong with this sentence

Top answer

Get the Weekly English Kit 📬

Related Questions