Now, class, pay attention to the board. Here is the sentence that we are studying today.

"There are a lot of morons."

Please say it in as many different ways as you can think of to alter its meaning. Susie, would you like to go first? Billy? Johnny? Mary? What? No one?

"THERE are a lot of morons."

Emphasis on the first word of this sentence is used to indicate a certain direction or place, meaning that one can presently see many morons amassed closely together at a certain location.

"There ARE a lot of morons."

Emphasis on the intransitive verb indicates agreement, and when uttered with a sympathetic nod conveys the speaker's commiseration with the his companion, who probably just said:

"There are a LOT of morons."

The person expressing the sentence with this particular emphasis would be marveling at the sheer number of morons, which is quite understandable given the facts that (1) they are amassed closely together and (2) they apparently are capable of moving by some sort of locomotion without the necessary functioning gray matter to allow them otherwise to function in a social or business environment.

"There are a lot of MORONS."

In this example, the emphasis on the last word indicates astonishment, delight, or dismay. One may only ascertain which by observing the expression of the speaker and listening carefully to the speaker's tone of voice. Although English is not a tonal language, we do convey emotion through tones and our emotion can color meaning.

Under no circumstances, ever, at any time, regardless of the situation, is the purported sentence:

"Their a lot of morons."

ever, ever, correct. This phrase is a noun clause. It contains no verb, and every sentence must have both a noun and a verb. It is an incomplete sentence. The word "their" is possessive, so the lot of morons belongs to persons being referred to in the first word of the sentence.  To properly identify the morons, the word "a" should be left out. A "lot" of morons is an indefinite but large number, probably less than a gross of morons but considerably more than a solitary moron standing alone.

A variation of the original sentence that may also be heard is:

"They're a lot of morons."

This variation indicates that the subjects about whom the speaker speaks are all morons, and that there are many of them. This phraseology is somewhat British-sounding in nature. An American speaker would be more likely to say,

"Whata buncha maroons."

Th-th-th-that's all, folks!