[Grammar] Which sounds better and why?

[KEN JPN]

(1) There are many staff members in this company.
(2) This company has many staff members.

Do both of them sound natural?
Which sounds better in what situation?

a, There are two legs with a man.
b, A man has two legs.

I feel that b sounds better.

I wonder in which case "there is/are" construction fits better, in which case "S has" does.

c, There are four eggs on the plate.
d, The plate has four eggs on it.



Could you give me any clue?

 

[BrunaBC]

Tere is and there are mean that something exists or happens, while the verb have (has) indicates possession. Sometimes they're interchangeable (like your examples 1 and 2), noticing that the verb have always needs a subject.

In you second example, sentence b makes no sense, because A man has two legs, he was born with them, no one placed the legs there.

And in your last example, sentence A is correct. The sentence B, though grammatical, sounds odd. Perhaps you could say 'I have four eggs on my plate'.

 

[SoothingDave]

"The plate has 4 eggs on it" is fine, but the other way is much more natural. You wouldn't say you have eggs "in" your plate.

 

[Barb_D]

Sorry, I may not have read this correctly, but of course "A man has two legs" makes sense, and it makes infinitely more sense than "There are two legs with a man."

An ant has six legs.
A spider has eight legs.
A man has two legs.

 

[BrunaBC]

Sorry, I may not have read this correctly, but of course "A man has two legs" makes sense, and it makes infinitely more sense than "There are two legs with a man."

An ant has six legs.
A spider has eight legs.
A man has two legs.

Of course, that's what I said: i

n you second example, sentence b makes no sense, because ​

A man has two legs (this is sentence A, which is correct), he was born with them, no one placed the legs there.

Maybe I did not express myself properly.;-)

 

[Barb_D]

a, There are two legs with a man.
b, A man has two legs.

In you second example, sentence b makes no sense, because A man has two legs, he was born with them, no one placed the legs there.

b is the correct way to say this. It does make sense, especially in an example like the one I gave above.

 

[BrunaBC]

Well, if you say so who am I to disagree?:roll: But I would never say there are two legs with a man when I can say a man has two legs.

 

[Barb_D]

Okay, one of us is obvisouly crazy.
Sentence A was the one about two legs with a man. Sentence B is the one that says "a man has two legs."


In my post, I didn't refer to A or B, I just quoted the words to say that the way sentence A is written is entirely unnatural and that the way B is written is natural.

Twice, you posted that sentence B makes no sense. Now you say that you you would say it the way it's written in B.

I will assume you simply made a mistake about which was A and which was B and that we are actually in agreement.

 

[KEN JPN]

Thank you very much for your instructive discussion over my questions.

Let me sum up your opinions and confirm my understanding so far:

(1) There are many staff members in this company.
(2) This company has many staff members.

These two sentences are interchangeable.

(my understanding)
Whichever language it may be, whether a sentence sounds natural or not generally depends on the context.
Even though different sentences can describe the same fact, there should be some slight difference in the idea, feeling, emphasis or focus of the speaker.


a, There are two legs with a man.
b, A man has two legs.

a- makes infinitely more sense than b

(my understanding)
Even to my ears, the sentence (a) sounds odd.
I reflected the reason in myself, uttering these two sentences repeatedly to figure out what difference I can feel between them and why.

When I first compared these two sentences without any context, I unconsciously felt that the speaker is referring to an attribute of a man. In that sense, taking "a man" as the subject of the sentence makes it clear that the speaker focuses on "a man" and is describing how he looks, what he possesses in nature.

If so, even in the examples (1) and (2), the sentence (2) could express its attribute. The speaker is describing the company, while the sentence (1) objectively states that there are a lot of people and that they are in the company as an additional information.


c, There are four eggs on the plate.
d, The plate has four eggs on it.

c-good / more natural than d
d-fine/ sounds odd (though grammatical)

"There is/are" construction can express the number of things/persons with equal naturalness.
However, in a S-V construction, we may feel more comfortable when the S is Personal or something 'alive' than when it is just a thing/things, because a thing does not do anything with its own will.

In addition, "having four eggs" is not the attribute of the plate. Maybe it would sound more natural if I say,
"The plate has four roses printed on it".

Any additional advice is welcome.

 

[Barb_D]

No, your summary is not correct. Your "a" sentence about the legs is completely strange. The "b" sentence is the natural one. Please read Dave's post again for the set about the eggs.

However, you are right that context is what makes something natural or not.

 

[paul.moss]

The diffrence between these sentences has to do with how English processes new and shared information. In every context new information is communicated in the context of shared information. English normally positions new information after the shared info, and there are grammatical devices that enable us to place the new information in the right place, one of which is existential 'there'. So, in the sentence:"the company has many staff members","the company"is felt to be the shared information and is called the theme or the subject about which you're giving new info: "has many staff members". "There" in "there are many staff members in the company' is a way of emphasising the whole sentence. To learn more about this and other information processing devices see"a comrehensive grammar of the English language" by R. Quirk,etal.

 

[TheParser]

***** NOT A TEACHER *****


Hello, Ken:


You have asked a great question. May I add my two cents to the great answers that you have already received?

Which sentence do you prefer?

1. There are 50 stars on the American flag.

2. The American flag has 50 stars.

I think (repeat: think) that most native speakers would consider 1 as "more natural."

Why?

Ah! That's a difficult matter.

I did find one explanation in The Grammar Book by Mesdames Celce-Murcia and Larsen-Freeman. Here is their

opinion (which I have rewritten in my own words):

English speakers prefer to introduce new information in the verb phrase rather than in the subject position. The subject

position is often reserved for old information.

The following is an idea that I got from their book:

If you saw a strange man outside your door, probably most native speakers would say: Call the police! There is a

strange man trying to open our door! NOT: Call the police! A strange man is trying to open our door. (Remember: the

scholars say that native speakers usually reserved the subject position for old information.)

 

[emsr2d2]

Just a thought - is there some misunderstanding on the previous page about the meaning of "A makes infinitely more sense than ​B"?

 

[KEN JPN]

Oops. that was a typo.
As you see in my main passage, I meant "(b) is natural"

a, There are two legs with a man.
b, A man has two legs.

a- makes infinitely more sense than b

(my understanding)
Even to my ears, the sentence (a) sounds odd.

 

[KEN JPN]

Thank you very much for your very precious advice.
My teacher used to tell me (when I started to learn English -- 40 years ago, though LOL), "Always try to learn English grammar as a kind of psychology." He also told me, "There are no man-made rules in English. All the 'rules' in the grammar book are 'tendencies' which English natives have in common. Try to learn how they feel, acquire the same feeling inside yourself then you will speak English the same way they do."

Let me read your message carefully again .... and again until I have acquired the feeling.

 

[emsr2d2]

Oops. that was a typo.
As you see in my main passage, I meant "(b) is natural"

a, There are two legs with a man.
b, A man has two legs.

a- makes infinitely more sense than b

(my understanding)
Even to my ears, the sentence (a) sounds odd.

I'm still confused as to what is a typo and what is a misunderstanding. Here it is in its simplest form:

A - There are two legs with a man - COMPLETELY UNNATURAL AND NOT USED
B - A man has two legs - ABSOLUTELY CORRECT.

So clearly, B makes infinitely (= much) more sense than A.
A makes no sense.
B makes complete sense.

 

[carlosteacher]

The way I understand it is, when you refer to things or someone that exist somewhere and use any preposition of place, you should go with using: either there is or there are. Now the choice b is also appropriate when you use the subject is the possessor. Informally, I'd go with using choice a, most often.

 

[KEN JPN]

I think I am getting to understand much better.


Pattern A: (description of existence) + (place)
Pattern B: (Possessor) have/has (object).

A: (There are many staff members)+(in this company)
B: (This company) has (many staff members)

Both patterns sound natural.

A: (There are two legs)+ ( with a man = not a place) --Unnatural
B: (A man) has (two legs). ---Natural

Here in the sentence A, "with a man" is different from "in this company" in the point that the prepositional phrase does not purely mean "a place where", which is the reason this sentence sounds unnatural.

Even though in the sentence B, "a man" looks like "new information", this is almost equivalent to "any man" or "any instance of man", so it sounds different from "a certain man". It can be paraphrased as "Pick up any man for instance and he(=old information) has two legs."