I think there is a better explanation for why ‘a lot of’ is different than ‘a pair of’. I believe ‘of’ can be either a preposition or a postposition.

“A lot of” is a postpositional phrase in normal usage. The word “of” can be prepositional or postpositional in English. It would be a preposition at an auction where we might talk about “a lot of books” meaning this particular numbered grouping (lot) contains books, versus “There are a lot of books on the table” where lot means quantity. Otherwise you would be saying these sentences do not have the same deep structure in English:

Five hundred books are for sale.
Hundreds of books are for sale.
A ton of books are for sale.
A lot of books are for sale.
A roomful of books are for sale.
Scores of books are for sale.
A shitload of books are for sale.
A number of books are for sale.
A large quantity of books are for sale.
Many books are for sale.
A group of books are for sale.

The subject of every sentence must be books – or we have to explain how we would have to have transformations to produce all of these exceptions, or would have to explain why they all are understood to derive from the same basic morphology. ‘Books’ is the subject and the words preceding it serve as an adjective to modify the subject by its quantity. The adjective can be a specific quantity ‘five hundred’ or non-specific as “many” or a non-sepcific postpositional phrase like “a lot of”, etc.

‘Group of’ could be used specifically or non-specifically as well. Usually when we would say ‘that group of books’ or ‘this group of books’, but only in the meaning that there are other books present which are known not to be in the “group”. When ‘a group of’ is meaning a “non-specific quantity” it has a different deep structure and behaves differently just like ‘a lot of’.

A diverse group (lot, collection, quantity, number) of books is for sale at the bookstore on the corner. Sounds unacceptable to me, especially since we understand they can be bought individually and not as a unit (group).

A diverse group of books are for sale at the bookstore on the corner.

We have plenty of other postpositions in English (ago, hence, past, etc.), and this makes better sense and eliminates the need to claim a large number of exceptions. SWIDT?

Je vais amener un point de vue comique et grivois à ces hypothétiques et délicieuses interprétations ( c’est pas étonnant , je suis un français coquin , ou alors un coquin de français , as you need ) J’écrirais : there are a lot of chicken pour exprimer que ma femme est jolie et que de ce fait une bonne quantité d’hommes lui courent après , je visualise bien tous ces poulets , coqs , derrière elle . Et j’écris : there is A LOT of chickens pour exprimer an other idea : je considère qu’elle a beaucoup travaillé à la maison pour tuer , plumer , découper , cuisiner les volailles . Ou bien j’exprime une autre idée , dans un roman : Elle travaille dans un Mac Donald ??!!!

There are a lot of fish in the sea, and there is a lot of fish on my plate.
There are many fish in the sea, and there is a large amount of fish on my plate.

Hi David, sorry for the slow response, but yes I would, in general I’d say in spoken English ‘There’s’ is much more common than ‘There are’ regardless the context/grammar.

Obviously it is ‘ a lot of people think ‘ as ‘ people ‘relates to several folk.

Hi Olga,
Good question – technically yes, “there” would make it more grammatically correct, but (particularly in informal English) the “there” can often be omitted and still be understood in these situations. Off the top of my head, I suppose it happens when we have an adverbial before the “there is/are” statement, so we have a location already presented which makes “there” feel redundant (the location = there). But technically yes, it may be clearer and more correct to keep the “there”. Perhaps worth exploring in a separate article!
Phil

Hi Phil,
Shouldn’t it rather be written like:
“Behind every woman THERE are a lot of chickens”
Otherwise, the sentence does not sound complete to me

Hi Kari – first, I’m not a doctor! 🙂
But yes, this is one where it could be a bit flexible; “there are the metro and the tram” would be the more simply grammatically correct version as we are introducing a plural of two objects. However, “there is” might be considered more natural and more common in spoken English because the verb is followed by a singular noun. With lists of singular nouns, you’ll find “is” is rather common here. We might justify it by suggesting something like the complete list represents a singular unit (e.g. the complete English transport system), but realistically it’s more just a case that it sounds more natural to say “is” due to the following singular noun. Strict grammarians would tell you “is” is incorrect, but in practice (and as English is a living language, this is really what matters most!), you’ll find “is” is quite acceptable here.