Timeline for "'There is'/'There are' several ..." in this sentence
Current License: CC BY-SA 3.0
5 events
| when toggle format | what | by | license | comment | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Jun 6, 2012 at 22:54 | comment | added | Elberich Schneider | ... and be not afraid. Everyone can do errors, even RegDwight. | |
| Jun 6, 2012 at 22:50 | comment | added | Elberich Schneider | Hello dusktreader, it is intersting what you said just now! Why don't you improve your answer? You can do this every time you think it is necessary. | |
| Jun 6, 2012 at 22:27 | comment | added | dusktreader | I'm afraid I wasn't very careful with my answer. "There" is not the subject of the sentence and "horses" is not the predicate nominative. Instead, "horses" is the subject while the predicate nominative is actually the prepositional phrase, "in the market". Using "is" as the verb, however, still breaks subject-verb agreement because "horses" is plural. | |
| Jun 6, 2012 at 22:04 | comment | added | RegDwigнt | It should be stated more clearly that while "there is + [plural]" is not part of Standard English (yet), it is perfectly grammatical, which is why people use it in the first place. It is not a one-off error, a slip of the tongue, or a genuine mistake by a non-native speaker; much rather it's a construction millions of native speakers all over the word consciously use every day. It certainly isn't the highest register, but "ungrammatical" is a misnomer. | |
| Jun 6, 2012 at 21:27 | history | answered | dusktreader | CC BY-SA 3.0 |