Is there or are there a table and a bookcase in the room?

[Rachel Adams]

If I change these sentences into questions should I start my first sentence with "is" and the second with "are"?


1. "There's a table and a bookcase in the room."

2. "There are a table and a bookcase in the room."

3. "Is there a table and a bookcase in the room?"

4. "Are there a table and a bookcase in the room?"

 

[probus]

This is one of the classics that prescriptionists love to wrangle over. Both is and are are commonly used by native speakers and therefore both are correct in the descriptionist view. Personally I prefer the singular verb.

 

[Rachel Adams]

This is one of the classics that prescriptionists love to wrangle over. Both is and are are commonly used by native speakers and therefore both are correct in the descriptionist view. Personally I prefer the singular verb.

But "there is" isn't used in such sentences where there are two or more nouns, is it?

 

[probus]

Yes it is.

 

[emsr2d2]

"There is" isn't used much in those situations but "There's" is.

What's in the picture?
There's an elephant, a dog, three trees, a mountain and an old man with a wooden leg.

 

[Glizdka]

This is one of the classics that prescriptionists love to wrangle over.

There's literally billions of things they wrangle over. ;-)

 

[probus]

I would write "They are":?:

That would be wrong. Perhaps you meant "There are...", Stan?