a lot of

[Nightmare85]

Hello guys,
I'm currently thinking about these four sentences:
1. There is a lot of problems.
2. There are a lot of problems.
3. There is lots of problems.
4. There are lots of problems.

I have the feeling that only sentence 1 and 4 are correct.
Usually, I would have said that sentence 2 is fine, but "a lot" is singular, or not? :-o

Cheers!

 

[Jaskin]

hi,

Is "the" singular or plural ?

Cheers

 

[Nightmare85]

"The" can be both singular and plural.

Hey, you hijacked my thread :-o

Cheers!

 

[Allen165]

NOT A TEACHER.

I'm pretty sure that sentences 2 and 4 are correct. You will, however, very often hear people say, "There's a lot/lots of problems."

 

[emsr2d2]

NOT A TEACHER.

I'm pretty sure that sentences 2 and 4 are correct. You will, however, very often hear people say, "There's a lot/lots of problems."

I agree. In spoken English, you will regularly hear "There's a lot of..." although you won't hear many people use the uncontracted form "There is a lot of..."

"A lot of" here inherently suggests plural as it means "many".

If it were singular, you would be able to say "There is a lot of child" which we all know you can't say. "There are a lot of children" = "There are many children".

However, remember that this only works for countable nouns. If you're talking about something uncountable, then it's singular and means "much".

There is a lot of sand.
There is a lot of water.

 

[Nightmare85]

Hello Jasmin,
Yes, I'm aware of the fact that, "There's a lot/lots of problems." is often used.
However, they use it because there're is (almost) impossible to pronounce.
This means, saying there's doesn't necessarily mean there is, but there are

Cheers!

 

[Jaskin]

hi,
Please note I'm not a teacher nor a native speaker,

"The" can [STRIKE]be[/STRIKE] "take" both singular and plural.

Hey, you hijacked my thread :-o

Cheers!

No I didn't ;-) I just want you to ponder over your question " "a lot" is singular, or not"

Cheers,

 

[~Mav~]

Hi,

You know I'm neither a teacher, nor a native English speaker.

1. There is a lot of problems. :cross:
2. There are a lot of problems. :tick:
3. There is lots of problems. :cross: definitely not
4. There are lots of problems :tick:

but "a lot" is singular, or not? :-o

"a lot of" = "lots of" = many, a large number of, much of sg, etc. and we use them with uncountable (there is a lot of money / milk, etc.) and plural nouns.
I hope it helps. (And I hope I didn't say bullcrap. :-? :-D )

Tschüss

 

[corum]

Hello guys,
I'm currently thinking about these four sentences:
1. There is a lot of problems.
2. There are a lot of problems.
3. There is lots of problems.
4. There are lots of problems.

I have the feeling that only sentence 1 and 4 are correct.
Usually, I would have said that sentence 2 is fine, but "a lot" is singular, or not? :-o

Cheers!

Nightmare, Hi!
Can I ask you something? You probably know that the number of the verb agrees in grammatical concord with the number of the subject. This is a different kettle of fish from the "Two women is enough", where we take into account the notional value of "two women", which is singular in terms of quantity and which prompts "is". This notional consideration has no purpose in your sentence.

Okay, let us push agreement aside for a while and focus on finding the subject in the sentence.
But how? You know how! Do not be afraid. In questions ... yes! subject-verb (operator) inversion.

There is a lot of problems.
Is there a lot of problems?

It is either 'there' is the subject or the subject-verb inversion does not always work in interrogatives. I opt for the for the former.

We are still not out of the woods, Nightmare. :-( Expletives! What are they? They are words which mean nothing but are needed to fill an obligatory space in a sentence. Obligatory means these spaces that expletives occupy can't ever fall vacant. What is the problem with expletives when we are talking about agreement? The problem is that expletives have no referents, that is, they do not refer to anything. In terms of meaning they are empty. If they are empty, how do we know whether they are singular or plural? :halfrobo::multi::turn-l:

a lot of versus lots of
They can precede a singular non-count noun, plural nouns and pronouns.

a lot of chocolate :tick:
lots of chocolate :tick:
a lot of people :tick:
lots of people :tick:
a lot of them :tick:

 

[Nightmare85]

Thanks, guys.

Corum, so you say:
There is a lot of problems.
Is there a lot of problems?
is correct?

Others say it's not correct, and now we have different opinions again :-(

Cheers!

 

[emsr2d2]

In an attempt to simplify the various posts so far, this is how I see the rules:

When "a lot of" precedes a countable, plural noun, then it takes "There are"
When "a lot of" precedes an uncountable noun, it takes "There is".

There are a lot of people.
There are a lot of children.
There are a lot of languages in the world.
There are a lot of stars in the sky.

There is a lot of sand.
There is a lot of water.
There is a lot of money on the table.
There is a lot of food in my fridge.

Too simplistic?

 

[corum]

Too simplistic?

No, you are correct. Informally, however, 'there is' is accepted with plural nouns.

 

[corum]

and now we have different opinions again :-(

That is the story of my life. :-(

There are two subjects in your sentence:

1. there = grammatical subject, aka surface subject
2. a lot of something = deep subject

The verb has to agree with the deep subject.

 

[bertietheblue]

No, you are correct. Informally, however, 'there is' is accepted with plural nouns.

Although it has to be said that, in almost all cases, this becomes "there's" when used informally.