Search results for 'tag:Plurals tag:Relative pronouns' matching tags 'Plurals' and 'Relative pronouns'

Re: fruit are?

Cool Breeze — Thu, 24 Jul 2008 19:01:32 GMT

Goodman

As written: John and Mary are the only officers who make decisions around here. And I asked if the answer should be [makes] or [make].
And you said "In your sentence of course make"

By the nature of your comment, didn't you just agree with my view?

Yes, as far as who is concerned. What is something else. It never has an antecedent as a relative pronoun, neither singular nor plural, nothing, and that's why a singular verb is used with it. This is obvious from the singular that, which occurs in that which, which is sometimes used to replace what.

You can of course check the grammatical behavior of relative what in any good grammar book if you don't believe me. I find it very strange that you haven't already done that. It would have saved you a lot of time wasted writing opinions instead of facts.

Re: fruit are?

Cool Breeze — Thu, 24 Jul 2008 17:30:21 GMT

Goodman

The approach to treat "what" as sigular even when the preceding pronouns are plural in my opinion is incorrect.

I see. I get your point. Grammarians treat what as a relative pronoun that has no antecedent, singular or plural. It is inclusive of the antecedent and can usually be replaced with that which, in which collocation that is the antecedent. That which is not very common and therefore may sound odd to some natives' ears but it is correct English.

I didn't believe what / that which he told me.

So, we can agree that we disagree. You consider what as plural or singular depending on the preceding word/words, and I and grammarians always consider it singular because it has no antecedent.

Re: fruit are?

Goodman — Thu, 24 Jul 2008 17:16:18 GMT

<<< Goodman, you are changing the pronoun. In your sentence of course make. However, what as a relative pronoun is always singular:>>>
And so is who! s what is the difference?

No I am not changing anything. I just want to prove a point. The approach to treat "what" as sigular even when the preceding pronouns are plural in my opinion is incorrect. Therefore the verb has to agree with the singuarity or plurality of the noun. I maybe wrong.
As for the sentence, I deliberately made John and Mary as a compound pronoun which should require the verb to agree with the plural form.
B - John and Mary are the only officers who make decisions around here.

(Is it âmakesâ or âmakeâ?)

Re: fruit are?

Cool Breeze — Wed, 23 Jul 2008 21:14:00 GMT

Goodman

Also, even assumming "are "is correct, then "makes" is disagreeing with the previous verb, "are".

Of course it disagrees with are because it has nothing to do with it. The subject of makes is the relative pronoun what. According to most dictionaries, Webster's among them, fruit can be used as a collective plural. If are is wrong with it, what plural verb form of to be do you suggest?

Re: Bilingual

Cool Breeze — Mon, 03 Mar 2008 16:06:07 GMT

Anonymous
Websters is more of a descriptive dictionary. Cambridge and Oxford are prescriptive. I think that explains why Webster's has it as a noun. As our language evolves (becomes degraded), the more we'll find things in Websters that aren't widesly accepted by grammarians.

I agree with your analysis regarding the character of the two dictionaries. If change equal degradation, English was ruined hundreds of years ago. There are countless examples of that: the use of the auxiliary do in questions and negations, the use of s as a nearly universal plural ending, the use of which and who as relative pronouns etc. Also, more than 99 percent of modern English spellings are incorrect compared with what they were 1200 years ago. The language is completely corrupt if we accept the premise that change equals degradation.

The funny thing is that most people don't consider past changes bad, only those that happen in their lifetime. I fail to understand the logic behind that reasoning.

Re: sentences correct?

Feebs11 — Sun, 18 Nov 2007 00:05:41 GMT

Solomon_13000 wrote:
Are the sentences below correct in terms of the use of preposition and so on in italic?

Preposition

Neither Amy nor her sisters like to do ironing every week.

He is like his mother

He is always like that

Besides working at the restaurant, he also works at the garage.

He is watching TV besides eating

Everyone besides Jane went to the birthday party

The ferry departs at hourly interval.intervals

I stay at my parents' house

He wasnât at home last night

John was accused of stealing the box of coins.

John is the son of Jacob

I knew him since January of last year

Verb

Miss Wong came early to make coffee for everyone, didnât she?

There are things we didnât know until John told us

He didnât study yet he passed in his exams passed his exams

The naughty boy was running at that time, wasnât he?

I wasnât hungry just now

He wasnât accepted for the job

I shall Madam Andrea in Scotland after my examinations. incomplete - have you missed out part of your verb?

I shall visit my aunty next week

After lunch we shall visit the school

John decided to go to the library and borrow some books.

John plans to borrow some money from the bank

It is not a good habit to borrow something from people

The musical concerts will be held in Germany next year.

The elections will be held by December

He will be held responsible for the incident

Neither of the girls are keen on taking up sewing.

They are having their dinner

They are cleaning the house

Aaron usually drinks milk but yesterday he asked for tea instead.

He drinks a lot of water

He drinks water from the tap

Harry, like his brother, is a good athlete.

He is washing his car

He is pressing the wrong button

Either of the shirts looks good on you.

It looks like he is searching for something

He looks handsome

Adverb

Kim does not want to join us for dinner as she has already ~~taken~~ hers. eaten OR had

He has already ~~taken~~ his lunch eaten OR had

The building is already completed

Since you are not the culprit, you should not be worried about the interrogation.

Since yesterday there was no rain at all Ungrammatical>>There has been no rain at all since yesterday.

I have worked for the company since the 1990s.

It is the most exciting movie I have seen

That is the most attractive colour

Most people love shopping

Auxiliary Verb

Everyone in my family has a mobile phone.

It's a car that has air bags

The cat has run away

I usually have my dinner at half past seven in the evening.

I have studied today

I have slept this afternoon

Relative pronoun

No matter what she did or said, he would not forgive her.

He really enjoys what he does best

He only does what is right in life

This is the girl whom we were talking about.

The man whom you met is my friend

This is the person to whom I sent my job application

Conjunction

The pant was uncomfortable so Jack refused to wear it. "pants" = trousers - always in the plural.

He was hungry so he ate some food

It rained so I did not go out today

Re: about an ellipsis of relative pronoun

Loojka — Sat, 29 Sep 2007 16:51:40 GMT

Ahn wrote:

Managed properly, a nuclear revival could be a good thing. But the industry and the governments keen to promote it look like repeating some of the mistakes that gave it a bad name in the first place.

Is the purple part what omitted 'which is' from "The industry and the governments which is keen to promote it" ?

Which are or that are - you have the word "governments" which is a plural noun. Yes, that's the part of the sentence where the relative pronoun is omitted.

Re: sentences check

Cool Breeze — Tue, 25 Sep 2007 16:14:37 GMT

Very good! Elements ... make; element ... makes
In English there is never a distinction between a singular and a plural relative pronoun, in other words that is correct in both sentences.

CB

Re: One of the ... that ...

Zj.frank — Tue, 21 Aug 2007 09:37:23 GMT

Tanit wrote:

Hi, good question!

I was wandering whether a slightly different point of view exists as for the subject of the sentence:
He is one [of the few] that knows the solution to the problem.
or
He is one of the few that know the solution to the problem.

After some research, I came across this:

"one of those who. Constructions such as one of those people who pose a different problem. Many people argue that who should be followed by a plural verb in these sentences, as in He is one of those people who just donât take ânoâ for an answer. Their thinking is that the relative pronoun who refers to the plural noun people, not to one. They would extend the rule to constructions with inanimate nouns, as in The sports car turned out to be one of the most successful products that were ever manufactured in this country.

But the use of the singular verb in these constructions is common, even among the best writers. In an earlier survey, 42 percent of the Usage Panel accepted the use of the singular verb in such constructions. Itâs really a matter of which word you feel is most appropriate as the antecedent of the relative pronounâ one or the plural noun in the of phrase that follows it. Note also that when the phrase containing one is introduced by the definite article, the verb in the relative clause must be singular: He is the only one of the students who has (not have) already taken Latin."

For what it's worth, heere are the Google search results for
"one of the few of that" and
"one of the few of who" in the BBC website only. If you consider only sentences in simple present , you will find both "have" and "has", "do" and "does" and so on.

Thanks, Tanit!

I was writing my previous reply while you posted this one.

The link you provided is really useful.

Re: One of the ... that ...

Tanit — Tue, 21 Aug 2007 09:18:48 GMT

Zj.frank wrote:
Dear all:

He is one of the few that knows the solution to the problem.
or
He is one of the few that know the solution to the problem.

Do the two "that"s denote different things? Shall we say that the first "that" denotes "he" while the second "that" denotes "the few"? If so, do the two sentences have slightly different meanings?

It seems that the first sentence is more often used. Here is an example from <http://www.bbc.co.uk/go/films/int/1mm/gluttony/-/films/oneminutemovies/watch/snowball.shtml?gluttony.shtml>

This is the best film on here... and one of the few that bothers with any sense of narrative and character.

Surely there are a few films that bother with some sense of narrative and character. Is it to say that in such case, we usually use "that bothers" rather than "that bother"? Thanks in advance for any enlightenment!

Hi, good question!

I was wandering whether a slightly different point of view exists as for the subject of the sentence:
He is one [of the few] that knows the solution to the problem.
or
He is one of the few that know the solution to the problem.

After some research, I came across this:

"one of those who. Constructions such as one of those people who pose a different problem. Many people argue that who should be followed by a plural verb in these sentences, as in He is one of those people who just donât take ânoâ for an answer. Their thinking is that the relative pronoun who refers to the plural noun people, not to one. They would extend the rule to constructions with inanimate nouns, as in The sports car turned out to be one of the most successful products that were ever manufactured in this country.

But the use of the singular verb in these constructions is common, even among the best writers. In an earlier survey, 42 percent of the Usage Panel accepted the use of the singular verb in such constructions. Itâs really a matter of which word you feel is most appropriate as the antecedent of the relative pronounâ one or the plural noun in the of phrase that follows it. Note also that when the phrase containing one is introduced by the definite article, the verb in the relative clause must be singular: He is the only one of the students who has (not have) already taken Latin."

For what it's worth, heere are the Google search results for
"one of the few of that" and
"one of the few of who" in the BBC website only. If you consider only sentences in simple present , you will find both "have" and "has", "do" and "does" and so on.

EDITED: "wandering" is a typo for "wondering". My apologies.