Consider this sentence:
There is no sidewalk or entrances on the north side of the road.
It seems to me that it is ungrammatical, because “sidewalk or entrances” is plural.
There are no entrances or sidewalk on the north side of the road.
seems clearly correct, but I think there is a subtle difference in meaning (or, at least, in its pragmatics) in that it shifts the emphasis away from the sidewalk issue and toward the entrances. (At any rate, I can think of contexts in which this would be so.)
On the other hand,There are no sidewalk or entrances on the north side of the road.
sounds wrong to me. Is it wrong? Is the first version (which strikes my ear ok) really wrong?
I realize the sentence could be rewritten to avoid the problem. For instance:
The north side of the road has no sidewalk or entrances.
But, well, why should one have to?
“There are no entrances, and no sidewalk…” strikes me as good. Your problem is with the “or” – make it an “and” and the singular sidewalk is combined with the plural entrances in a compound, plural subject.
No, I don’t think the “or” is the problem.
There are no sidewalk, and no entrances on the north side.
also sounds wrong, whereas
There is no sidewalk, and no entrances on the north side.
putatively is wrong.
And I do not see why I should not be allowed to put my “sidewalk” and my “entrances” in the order I want.
Another related (possibly the same) issue. Should it be
Smith (and, just possibly, Jones) is expected to be there.
or
Smith (and, just possibly, Jones) are expected to be there.
?
Why pluralize entrance? “There is no sidewalk or entrance…”
Well, OK, I could do that, but why should I have to? Why is there not a “correct” number for the verb if I do use “entrances”? (or if there is, what is it?)
That there are “no entrances” might allow a pedant to say there can be one entrance.
i.e. there are entrances, or an entrance or no entrance
I’d use:
There is no sidewalk, or entrance on the north side of the road (leaving the possibility there may be one or more exits on the north side)
He would be wrong, though. If it were “there are not entrances,” he might have a, tenuous, point.
As I indicated in the OP, I realize that there are ways to express the same thought without running into this problem, but I want to understand why it is a problem (or whether it really is)?
The context plays a part in this, because normally there can be only one sidewalk, while there could be multiple entrances. The propositional force of the utterance (i.e., consideration of the expectations of the interlocutor) would weigh upon the grammar.
But the OP is begging the question–why even raise it if someone would never make the statement in this way? Clearly someone might. I think it’s because the use of THERE IS/THERE ARE is becoming more of a “number null” structure–as it is in many other languages.
You can hear people say: “There’s some cookies in the kitchen, isn’t there?”, etc., and no one bats an eye. As OP suggested, the proximity of the subject/subjects still seems to weigh upon which structure is used, and in the same way, modifiers like “some” may work as though they literally meant “an indeterminate amount of.” But the tendency seems to be drifting to there’s which is similar to hay in Spanish or il y a in French.
Maybe the only thing holding it back is the (idiosyncratic) negative and interrogative formations in English. I have data of (native) speakers saying things like:
There’s snacks on that table over there.
There’s more than one way to the beach.
There’s people coming up the road.
etc.
However, things like:
*Is there cookies in the kitchen?
*There isn’t quarters in the cash register.
Still seem marked.
I think this is something in English that can’t really be categorized as clearly grammatical or not in black-and-white terms.
Thanks, that is interesting, although I don’t see why you think I was begging the question. My concern was that what sounds intuitively right in this context seems to go against the rule that applies in most cases.
What you say about “there’s” being on the cusp of becoming a “number null structure” sounds plausible. I have some nitpicks about a couple of your examples, though.
I would not say that, and would think it odd or uneducated if I heard it. I might well, however, say “There’s some cookies in the kitchen, aren’t there?” (But your point, I take it, was about “there’s,” not “isn’t”.)
Surely that is just uncontroversially correct. No-one would say “There are more than one way to the beach.” I would also say, for instance, “More than one sausage was [not were] overcooked.” “More than one X” seems to be singular, although I am a bit puzzled as to why it is singular, since it clearly refers to more than one item.
Interesting. I had not really realized that that was possible, but it seems to fit the facts.
That’s the issue, I think. I was referring to intuitive grammar, rather than prescriptive grammar. The rules that appear in grammar books–in this case–perhaps try to regulate something that is cognitively working in a different way. Proximity, I think plays a part in it. Compare:
A) A lot of people are eating in the room.
B) There’s a lot of people eating in the room.
A) is construed as plural, and B) as singular, though–in prescriptive terms–the noun phrase is the same in both. Still, I wouldn’t say it’s “uneducated” to say B), nor would I say that B) is marked as dialect.
Well, you might not say it if you were giving a lot of thought to your speech. But people often change they way they speak in different contexts. I don’t think it’s simply a question of education.
In this case, I think proximity and the “indeterminate quantity marker” play a part.
Yes, and that’s why I think human grammar doesn’t reduce to simple mathematics. The mind of a (native) speaker doesn’t really “count” things when constructing agreement.
The rule I was taught is that verbs agree in number to the closest nominative in an “or” construction.
njtt said:
The problem is that you do not have quantity agreement between your ors.
One sidewalk, several entrances.
There is no entrances on the north side of the road.
Clearly wrong.
There are no sidewalk on the north side of the road.
Wrong again.
There are no sidewalk or entrances on the north side of the road.
Wrong. Or is not and, so it does not add the quantities.
There is no sidewalk or entrances on the north side of the road.
Correct. If it seems odd, rephrase the sentence. Easiest way is to make entrances singular.
Verb agrees with first item of an or list.
guizot said:
I would say that two of those are incorrect in formal English, though acceptable in colloquial English. Though they are odd to me.
The one that is correct is the middle one, because “one” signals “way” to be singular, so quantity agreement means using “there is” rather than “there are”.
But with snacks or people, I would certainly look funny at someone saying “There’s snacks on that table” or “There’s people…” YMMV.
njtt said:
“More than” are additional modifiers. Our expectation of the sentence is framed by “one sausage” or “one way”, so even though the “more than” actually makes the quantity change, our language is framed already.
guizot said:
Well, I would say it is uneducated. But you may have a point about “intuitive grammar” here. Probably because “There’s” is easier to say than “There’re”. I think it’s the contractioning that is causing the issue. Drop the contraction and it stands out as obviously wrong.
“There is a lot of people eating in the room.”
This one is especially tricky because “lot” is a collective noun, which means it is a singular word for a group of items. Nominally they are to be treated singular, so actually “There is a lot” should be correct.
“There is a lot of noise coming from the next room.”
I think it is being affected by “people”. People is a plural collective noun, triggering the whole sentence back plural.
Isn’t this exciting?
There are neither entrances nor a sidewalk …
Seconded. There are neither a sidewalk nor entrances.
That doesn’t sound right to me. “There is neither a sidewalk nor entrances” is much better.
Anyway, as I made quite explicit in the OP, I am well aware that the thought can expressed in ways that are uncontroversially grammatically correct. Suggestions of such ways are missing the point.
i was disappointed that i wasn’t the first to point out that the OP should have applied neither/nor, but i’ll echo their sentiments.
as for
the first and third would grate a bit on my ear. the middle one is fine because way is singular and “more than one” is merely an modifier. logically and numerically, it’s wrong but if you diagram the sentence it works out.
Still, my point is that there’s no reason why grammar must always be numerically or logically consistent. It’s not necessarily mathematical–at least not all the time. The rules are things we impose after the fact, to help explain why grammar does the things it does.