Has/have

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Liveinjapan

#502609 Sat, 19 Apr 08 01:04 PM

Among them English is one of the languages that has/have many speakers.

I think have is a correct choice but is has also possible?

Thanks
LiJ

Liveinjapan

Joined on Sun, Feb 4 2007

Osaka, Japan

Contributing Member (1,450)

Please feel free to correct any words I wrote.LiJ

Yoong Liat

#502611 Sat, 19 Apr 08 01:10 PM

Liveinjapan

Among them English is one of the languages that has/have many speakers.

I think have is a correct choice but is has also possible? (No. Grammatically 'have' should be used.)

Thanks
LiJ

Yoong Liat

Joined on Mon, Sep 4 2006

Singapore

Veteran Member (5,605)

Yoong Liat

Doll

#502631 Sat, 19 Apr 08 02:43 PM

Ooh! I am confused a bit. We only refer to English, don't we? Then, why don't we use "has"?

Doll

Joined on Sat, Mar 10 2007

Turkey

Senior Member (2,261)

"I will be the slave of the one who teaches me only a single letter for forty years." Caliph Ali. Know the worth of us guys.

Kooyeen

#502692 Sat, 19 Apr 08 04:24 PM

Hi,
"have" is the "prescriptively correct" one, because it actually and grammatically refers to "languages".
Now, the fact is that a lot of native speakers use the singular in those kinds of structures, because they make the verb agree with what comes before "one of".

The advice is: use the plural when you feel you will be judged on strict grammar rules (= ESL Tests), otherwise use either one, depending on what you have in mind, what you are thinking of.

Venusian is one of the languages that don't have the subjunctive. --> You are thinking of the languages that don't have the subjunctive, and Venusian is one of them.
Venusian is one of the languages that doesn't have the subjunctive. --> You are thinking that Venusian doesn't have the subjunctive, along with other languages.

Smile

Oops, that's true for American English... I don't know if you are interested in BrE.

Kooyeen

Joined on Thu, Dec 22 2005

Italy

Senior Member (3,706)

*Parental Advisory*Explicit Posts

American English, Grammar, Plurals, Subjunctives, Verbs

Yoong Liat

#502741 Sat, 19 Apr 08 07:14 PM

Hi Doll

... English is one of the languages that has/have many speakers.

... English is one of the languages that have many speakers. ( The verb should agree with the noun 'languages'.)

English is not the only language that has many speakers. Other languages also have many speakers.

My reply in the earlier post is 'Grammatically have should be used.'

I think the sentence should be rephrased as: Besides other languages, English is spoken by many people.

I hope my explanation enables you to understand why 'have' slhould be used.

Yoong Liat

Nouns, Verbs

Doll

#502760 Sat, 19 Apr 08 09:22 PM

Thank you Kooyeen and Yoong Liat, I understood it.

Doll

MrPedantic

#502772 Sat, 19 Apr 08 10:34 PM

A parallel case may clarify:

1. English is the easiest of the languages that have many speakers.

which can be rephrased as:

2. Of the languages that have many speakers, English is the easiest.

(No one would use "has" here.)

Best wishes,

MrP

MrPedantic