🚀 go-pugleaf

In article <1992Jul21.190619.21438@alf.uib.no>, hlirg@alf.uib.no (Roger
Greenwald) says:
>
>
>A worse one is that the New York
>Times usually contains at least a few sentences every day in
>which the verb does not agree with the subject in number.
>The most common case is that of sentences that begin with
>"There is" or "there was," and then follow up with a list
>of items, each of which is singular. (There is anger and
>frustration in Sarajevo tonight.) But there are many other
>cases as well. You can say the writers can't count from
>one to two; or you can say that the plural form of "to be"
>is gradually disappearing from English. The latter is a linguist's
>type of description. In this case it's probably correct, even if it
>may be regrettable.
>--
>Roger Greenwald
>Greenwald@hf.uib.no (address valid only until 10 August 1992)

I think that this phenomena is not new. We talked about this very
topic in one of my grammar classes and it seems that in a list,
Standard English speakers will use a verb that agrees with the nearest
subject. This type of speech has been used by educated speakers for
quite some time.

If you look at the deep structure of your example, you would say,
'There is anger in Sarajevo tonight and there is frustration in
Sarajevo tonight.'

                                   Gregson Vaux

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