[General] Is there a pair of socks, two shirts on the table?

[jiaruchan]

_____ there a pair of socks, two shirts on the table?

----------------------------------


Hello, teachers, the above sentence had appeared in my cousin's exercise test. It was supposed to test whether 'is' would be filled in the blank part. My cousin checked 'are', for which he received a wrong mark.


What do you think of the sentence? Is 'is' a correct one? Thank you.

 

[José Manuel Rosón Bravo]

Hi Jiaruchan,

“Pair” is a noun with two forms: pair (singular) and pairs (plural).

And there is a determiner “a”.

So:

There “is” a pair of socks, because we are talking about the pair, not about the socks (maybe this is what is confusing you).

Your cousin was wrong.

On the other way, I do not understand the sentence. Perhaps, it was like this:

There --- a pair of socks and two shirts on the table.

In these case, you would say:

There "are" a pair of socks and two shirts on the table.

A pair of socks + two shirts = ARE.


Regards,

José Manuel Rosón Bravo

 

[jiaruchan]

Hi Jiaruchan,

“Pair” is a noun with two forms: pair (singular) and pairs (plural).

And there is a determiner “a”.

So:

There “is” a pair of socks, because we are talking about the pair, not about the socks (maybe this is what is confusing you).

Your cousing was wrong.

On the other way, I do not understand the sentence. Perhaps, it was like this:

There --- a pair of socks and two shirts on the table.

In these case, you would say:

There "are" a pair of socks and two shirts on the table.

A pair of socks + two shirts = ARE.


Regards,

José Manuel Rosón Bravo

I know. The sentence seems not right.

A pair of socks + two shirts should be linked with an 'and' rather than a comma. That is my understanding.

 

[José Manuel Rosón Bravo]

I think the same.

 

[Tdol]

I know. The sentence seems not right.

A pair of socks + two shirts should be linked with an 'and' rather than a comma. That is my understanding.

I agree that the sentence should use and. However, there are also different approaches taken with the verb- some people would use are (numerical concord) but others would use is because the verb is directly followed by 'a pair'. I would say that it's not really a fair question because different people will give different answers.