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There is a cow and two sheep.

The sentence above has caused me some problems. I’ve studied all Murphy’s Grammar books, but couldn’t find a particular rule or exception for this case. My teacher corrected «is» to «are» saying that after a singular noun (a cow) there is a plural “two sheep”. Is there a rule for such a situation? Thanks in advance.

Araucaria - Him
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Natalie
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  • Are a cow and two sheep in the field? – tchrist Dec 04 '17 at 06:28
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    It depends on what you're counting. If you're counting the one cow, with the two sheep just tagging along as affiliates of sorts, then "is a cow" is fine. If you're counting all 3 animals, use are. Example of the form of the former - there is a tourist and all her luggage. – Lawrence Dec 04 '17 at 06:38
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    Your teacher is mistaken. There is a great answer to this question here. Your sentence uses proximity concord. – Araucaria - Him Dec 04 '17 at 07:45
  • @Lawrence So "There is two sheep and a cow" is ok? – Araucaria - Him Dec 04 '17 at 07:47
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    @Araucaria That's different - "is two sheep" is a whole 'nother cattle of fish. :) – Lawrence Dec 04 '17 at 07:58
  • If it's pronounced as contracted "there's" (regardless of how it's spelled), it's fine, IMO. If it's pronounced as two separate words "there" followed by "is", it's no good. People's judgements may be clouded by a tendency to spell "there is" as two words while pronouncing it as one contracted form. As usual, it's the pronunciation that counts. – Greg Lee Dec 04 '17 at 10:13

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