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Jerry Chen
Joined: 26 Jan 2006
Posts: 115
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 Posted: Mon Aug 13, 2007 5:51 pm Post subject: Need help from native speakers of English |
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Hello,
Please tell me which of the following is/are grammatically correct.
An army of Greek soldiers, which was ready to fight, quietly entered the city.
An army of Greek soldiers, which were ready to fight, quietly entered the city.
An army of Greek soldiers, who were ready to fight, quietly entered the city.
Thanks for your help. |
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cgage2
Joined: 11 Jun 2007
Posts: 192
Location: US
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| Posted: Tue Aug 14, 2007 8:14 am Post subject: |
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The subject of the sentence is "army" which is singular. The appropriate verb should be the singular "was".
Since army is an object (as opposed to a specific persons or person), it should require the relative pronoun "which" (as opposed to who). |
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Lorikeet
Joined: 08 Oct 2005
Posts: 1877
Location: San Francisco
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| Posted: Tue Aug 14, 2007 6:06 pm Post subject: Re: Need help from native speakers of English |
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However, if you changed the last sentence to read, "An army of Greek soldiers who were ready to fight quietly entered the city." it would probably be okay because then "who were ready to fight" would modify the soldiers. (There might have been another army of Greek soldiers who were not ready to fight, but they didn't come.  ) |
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