Teacher Discussion Forums

"I reserve the term "phrasal verb" for a combination of words that has/have a meaning different from what would be expected from the individual words."

Would you say have or has, above? Are both possible? If so, what would it depend on?

I believe that both are possible and natural. If someone said, "...combination of words that has a meaning..." to me, I would interpret that by understanding the speaker was focusing on the combination and conceiving of it as a single unit.

On the other hand, if she said, "...combination of words that have a meaning...", I would be inclined to understand that she was focusing on the words and conceptualizing them as individual elements of a specified grouping.

Now, I feel certain that you are not confused about this, Metal56, and so wonder what you're up to. And I wonder if your observations square with mine.

On second look, however, I believe that "...has a meaning..." would be more likely from a native speaker, because of the specific ideas conveyed by the other elements of the sentence. Nonetheless, "...have..." is still possible. . . . Well, the more I look at it, I'll have to lean heavily in the direction of "has".

Larry Latham

Now, I feel certain that you are not confused about this, Metal56, and so wonder what you're up to. And I wonder if your observations square with mine.



Larry Latham

Prescriptively pushed, which is no mean feat with me, I would plump for "has", but on another site the fighting has been furious the past few days over the right to use have. Not an easy area to advise on.

I'm with Larry too on this, come on metal, this is easy.

What are you up to?

You must have an alterior motive here.

The technical term is notional agreement.