Verb and number agreement? (continued)

[Geoff]

In the Verb and number agreement? thread I asked should seems be seem in the following sentence?

Trouble is, there seems to be as many exceptions as not: lecturer, adaptor.

This led to a lengthy discussion regarding the verb and number agreement in the sentence:

There is a blackbird and two thrushes on the lawn.

where the singular verb was used because it felt correct.

Two opposing lines of thought followed. They were characterised, I think, by:

If if feels correct to a substantial number of experienced users, then it is correct. Any other position leads to madness!


and:

To hell with whether it feels odd (and it feels just fine to me, by the way); we can't let an illogical piece of incorrect grammar slip by merely because it feels right. That is the way in which madness and the slide to anarchic English lie.

Nowhere in the discussion was any authoritative reference cited until I quoted from my grammar book that there and here are not subjects and that after there and here we usually find the verb first and then the subject. I considered this relevant because a case was being put that, in sentences such as those being examined, there was the subject. (I don't know how authoratative one would regard my grammar book; but it is, nevertheless, a grammar book.) Paul said I do have a few reputable references that say that there is the subject, but it's a distraction really.


I would have been interested to see what those references had to say on the matter and if there is any sort of majority agreement about the correctness or otherwise of the subject sentences.. As the original thread has been locked I have resurrected the subject here.

[Paul Doherty]

I'll look up the references.

In the meantime, my sample sentence is:

- There are one banana and two apples in my fruit salad.

(I've used "one banana" rather than "a banana" -- it seems to require "is" even more.)

This seems so wrong to me that I can't believe anyone really says it. Twod says he does, so I can only guess that he's so blinded by what he believes to be the rule that it is forcing him to say something completely unnatural (as people do in avoiding split infinitives).

My problem is that I can't find any reputable source to suggest that there is a convention which requires "There is one banana and two apples in ...", other than the proximity rule, which is itself controversial.

[SusanB]

I would never write it, but I could imagine I might say that "there are one banana and two apples in my fruit salad" (though I would most probably find there to be rasperries, blackberries, grapes, pineapple and melon there instead).

[Paul Doherty]

I've asked about a dozen (normal, not language-type) people today "which is right?":
- There is one banana and two apples in the bowl.
- There are one banana and two apples in the bowl.

Everyone has gone for the first, and is quite positive that the second is wrong, although no-one can give a reason. "It just is" is the common reason given, followed by "you can't say 'there are one ...' ". Equally everyone agrees that it would be:
- There are two apples and one banana in the bowl.

I was also told that if asked "what's in a cake", the reply might be "there is a pound of flour, two eggs, some butter, ..."

[Paul Doherty]

References for "there" as a dummy subject (requested by Geoff):

MWDEU

Fowler's Modern English Usage, Oxford, 3rd ed, ed Burchfield. p778.

Note: In constructions of these kinds, there is described by some scholars as introductory and by others as an existential, an anticipatory, or a dummy subject.

[Twoddle]

Paul:

(I've used "one banana" rather than "a banana" -- it seems to require "is" even more.)

You've got me fair and square there. No-one's going to say, "There are a banana ...".

[Geoff]

Thank you, Paul.

So, where does this leave us? We have conflicting references and, as best as I can see, verb and number agreement determined by proximity. So:

Trouble is, there seem to be as many exceptions as not: lecturer, adaptor.

There is a blackbird and two thrushes on the lawn.

There is one banana and two apples in the bowl.

Is that a fair summary?

If I'm honest with myself, I don't think I would write, or say, the last two sentences. I think I'm more likely to say:

There's a banana and two apples in the bowl.

There's a blackbird and two thrushes on the lawn.

but would recast the sentences in writing.

[Paul Doherty]

The sainted Fowler gives the example:

There were a plain deal table in there and some wicker armchairs which Jorgenson had produced from somewhere in the depths of the ship.

After extensive discussion, he concludes:

The author would have done better to write was and let the second part be elliptical with there were in there to be understood out of there was in there.

I think that puts him in my team!

[Paul Doherty]

Jul 1, 2008 22:34:49 GMT Geoff said:

Is that a fair summary?

Yes!

I too would probably say There's in speech, but I wouldn't recast in writing (i.e. I'd write There is). I regard it exactly as I regard split infinitives: if it seems to flow ok, and is clear, then I 'm not going to recast a perfectly good sentence because of some imagined rule which I do not believe exists in the black-and-white form that is alleged.

Twod prefers to obey the rules he has decided to believe in; that's fair enough too!

[Dave M]

Ah, but, Paul ...

The Fowler example (as he goes on to say) is rather special in having in there the phrase "in there". That phrase is placed in a way which brackets off the one deal table (although, admittedly, the sense of it carries through, intellectually though not necessarily grammatically, to the wicker armchairs).

If we began "there are a plain deal table in there and ..." it would be quite wrong. The sentence talks firstly of the one table "in there", and then goes on to mention other items - and it is by ellipsis that those other items are included in the "there" and "in there" structures.

[Paul Doherty]

So we're back to ellipsis, Dave. That's my current favourite explanation; I see there is one banana and two apples as a shortened form of there is one banana and there are two apples.

[Dave M]

Yup - that's how I see it, too.

[Twoddle]

Jul 2, 2008 12:29:37 GMT Paul Doherty said:

So we're back to ellipsis, Dave. That's my current favourite explanation; I see there is one banana and two apples as a shortened form of there is one banana and there are two apples.

OK; you've convinced me. Savour such a rare moment.

[Paul Doherty]

Goodness! I would have exalted you, but I see it's unnecessary ...

[Twoddle]

Jul 2, 2008 15:30:36 GMT Paul Doherty said:

Goodness! I would have exalted you, but I see it's unnecessary ...

No, that's all right; you go ahead.





[Locked as consensus seems to have been reached. pd]