one of ...

[Harzer]

Unfortunately, "gems" like this are few are far between on this and other threads, so the odd tenner might have to come your way if I am to succeed in my reconfiguration of English grammar - you should make a killing, since you have in effect cornered the market.

I can recommend Morocco at this time of year for that relaxing stress- and intonation-free holiday.

Harzer

[Duncan Powrie]

Yeah, guys, let your hair down, become unguarded and spontaneous in your writing, make an ass of yourself from time to time (like I do) even, and who knows, you might just help someone out here on Dave's (albeit inadvertently)!

Now then, Harzer, my Swiss bank account number is...HEY, seeing as you've recommended an intonation-free holiday destination, I can't thank you enough, keep your money, I insist!

See you lads, I'm off to Morocco!

[Harzer]

See_you_lads_I'm_off_to_ Mo_roc_co is nice and intonation-free. But I might have expected a bit more jubilation a la:

I'm roc
See to Mo
you off
lads co


seeing as how the intonation-free bit only starts when you get there.

Harzer

[Harzer]

Sorry about that. My server has no inclination to represent intonation.

But if you have the inclination LOL....

World Sex Guide: Morocco

"Morocco is a contradiction - a Muslim country with fairly liberal attitudes. In the tourist cities, Makarresh and Fez, you will find offers of boys, girls, sheep, donkeys and dope every 5 feet."

I apologise for the error - that should read Marrakesh.

Enjoy!

Harzer

[Duncan Powrie]

I can confirm the accuracy of Harzer's WSG report: I somehow got a free donkey thrown in with my McDonald's set (still a bit wary of the local food). Yeah, I'm LOVIN' IT here, whey hey!

Not sure though that I'll be lovin' it quite so much back in Japan (presuming I can somehow smuggle it through customs) - my apato walls are paper thin, and it brays rather loudly even with the fez pulled right down.

[Harzer]

Hooray! Another example of my rule has come to light while reading the above thread on "godless linguistics":

All english teachers should be required to include Babelism as a valid alternate theory to Linguisticism, whenever the origins of the English
language is discussed.

Harzer

[Stephen Jones]

Notional agreement here Harzer. "The Origins of the English Language" is considered as a singular topic.

[Harzer]

Are you really saying that you can change the punctuation as you wish in order to make this sentence correct?

There is no reference in the text to any publication "The Origins of the English Language", nor is there one here - I have done a copy and paste of her sentence as written and consider it incorrect for the reason shown, that the verb's number is determined by the preceding noun and not by the subject. Nobody on this forum will agree with you, I shouldn't think.

Harzer

[Stephen Jones]

Dear Harzer

The qoutation marks around the phrase "the origins of the english language" were not intended to show that it was a title. The punctation change for origins was an unfortunate mistake; the punctuation change in the other two words was to make the punctuation correct. The quotation marks were to show that in the mind of the speaker the subject 'the origins of the English Language" is considered as a singular topic.

You really must learn to use Google Harzer; if you are not able to find the concept of "notional agreement" in the books in your own library, then you can google for the phrase and you'll find many posts that will explain it for you. Here is one to get you started.

http://66.102.9.104/search?q=cache:S27N ... lish&hl=en

"Reaching Agreement "
Professor Kathryn Bock, Beckman Institute


In normal language production, systematic variations in number agreement point to several basic mechanisms of agreement implementation. Two of these mechanisms involve (a) notional valuation, the categorization of referents with respect to numerosity, and (b) lexical specification, the grammatical subcategorization of morphemes with respect to number. The roles played by notional and lexical factors have been explored in studies that manipulate the properties of agreement controllers for verb and pronoun targets. The results of an array of experiments imply that verb and pronoun number are differently sensitive to the notional number variations underlying canonical agreement controllers (subject noun phrases) but are similarly insensitive to the notional number variations of spurious controllers. Notably, verbs and pronouns appear to be equally attracted to the grammatical number of spurious controllers. Experiments on collective agreement in American and British English and on distributive agreement in English and Spanish converge on the same conclusions. To account for these patterns, a psycholinguistic theory of _marking and morphing (M&M)_ proposes separate mechanisms for control and concord that differ in how agreement features are represented and how they are transmitted during sentence formulation. The goal is to explain how number agreement works during language production to create a bridge from number meaning to number morphology.

Here's a quote from the Internet Grammar explaining what notional agreement is:
http://www.ucl.ac.uk/internet-grammar/f ... xfunc3.htm

The concept of NOTIONAL AGREEMENT sometimes comes into play:

The government is considering the proposal
The government are considering the proposal

Here, the form of the verb is not determined by the form of the Subject. Instead, it is determined by how we interpret the Subject. In the government is..., the Subject is interpreted as a unit, requiring a singular form of the verb. In the government are..., the Subject is interpreted as having a plural meaning, since it relates to a collection of individual people. Accordingly, the verb has the plural form are.

And finally here is a reference as mainstream as you can get, "The American Heritage Book of English Usage".
http://www.bartleby.com/64/pages/page36.html

The American Heritage® Book of English Usage.
A Practical and Authoritative Guide to Contemporary English. 1996.


Page 36



forms—am, are, is, was, were—depending on the person, number, and tense of a specific use. 1
notional agreement
It would be great if this was all there was to remember, but there is more than one kind of agreement. There is grammatical agreement, as discussed above, and agreement in meaning, or notional agreement. Usually grammatical agreement and notional agreement coincide. In the sentence He laughs, both are singular. In the sentence We laugh, both are plural. But in some sentences a subject can have a singular form and a plural meaning. Thus in the sentence Her family are all avid skiers, the noun family is singular in form but plural in meaning, and the verb is plural to agree with the meaning. In other words, there is notional agreement, but not grammatical agreement, between the subject and the verb. In the sentence Everyone has gone to the movies, the situation is reversed. The subject everyone is plural in meaning and singular in form, but the verb agrees in number with the form of its grammatical subject. There is grammatical agreement but not notional agreement. 2
Similarly, there are some nouns like mumps and news that are plural in form but take a singular verb: The mumps was once a common childhood disease. Amounts often take a singular verb: Ten thousand bucks is a lot of money. Here again we have notional, but not grammatical, agreement—the ten thousand bucks is considered a single quantity, and it gets a singular verb. 3
There are a number of words in English that can take a singular or plural verb depending on how they are used. Among these are collective nouns, pronouns such as any and none, and many nouns ending in -ics, such as politics. 4
agreement by proximity
Certain grammatical constructions provide further complications. Sometimes the noun that is adjacent to the verb can exert more influence than the noun that is the grammatical subject. Selecting a verb in a sentence like A variety of styles has been/have been in vogue for the last year can be tricky. The traditional rules require has been, but the plural sense of the noun phrase presses for have been. While 59 percent of the Usage Panel insists on the singular verb in this sentence, 22 percent actually prefer the plural verb and another 19 percent say that either has or have is acceptable, meaning that 41 percent find the plural verb with a singular grammatical subject to be acceptable. 5
Sometimes syntax itself makes it impossible to follow the agreement rule. In a sentence like Either John or his brothers are bringing the dessert, the verb can’t agree with both parts of the subject. Some people believe that the verb should agree with the closer of the two subjects. This is called agreement by proximity. For more on this subject, see either and or. 6
compound subjects
In Modern English, a compound subject connected by and normally takes a plural verb: Rebecca and Martha play in the same band. The house and the barn are on the same property. Their innovative idea, persistence, and careful research have finally paid off. When a subject is followed by a conjoining prepositional phrase such as as well as, in addition to, or with, the verb should be singular: Jesse as well as Luke likes jazz. The old school along with the playground is up for sale. 7
Sometimes compound subjects are governed by a sense of unity and by notional agreement take a singular verb: My name and address is printed on the 8

The American Heritage® Book of English Usage. Copyright © 1996 by Houghton Mifflin Company. All rights reserved.

[Harzer]

The only part of what you made me labour through, when I have better things to do, that has any conceivable bearing on the current matter is this:

Sometimes the noun that is adjacent to the verb can exert more influence than the noun that is the grammatical subject. Selecting a verb in a sentence like "A variety of styles has been/have been in vogue for the last year" can be tricky. The traditional rules require has been, but the plural sense of the noun phrase presses for have been. While 59 percent of the Usage Panel insists on the singular verb in this sentence, 22 percent actually prefer the plural verb and another 19 percent say that either has or have is acceptable, meaning that 41 percent find the plural verb with a singular grammatical subject to be acceptable

But on second thoughts even this has no bearing on our sentence. "a variety of styles" has the form "N-singular of N-plural", while our phrase has the form "N-plural of the N-singular", so that they can't be compared.

I would be interested to know how many of the progressive 41% who "find the plural verb with a singular grammatical subject to be acceptable" (and I would be one of them), would also agree with you that the plural "the origins" can/should take a singular verb. My guess is 0%. Your "notional agreement" has nothing to do with it.

Harzer

[Stephen Jones]

Dear Harzer

If you are only going to look for what reinforces with your previous prejudices than you have no need to waste your time reading books, or indeed to waste our time when it is clear that you do not have the least idea about what influences subject verb concord in English.

You persist in your delusion that the only thing that matter are the formal characteristics of singular/plural even when such non-revolutionary sources as Merriam Webster, The American Heritage Dicitionary, Quirk and Greenbaum and many others make it quite clear that this is but one factor, and "agreement in meaning" is another, and very important factor.

Indeeed notional agreement can be seen in English at least as far back as 1755 when Fielding produced the, admittedly awful construction, every lady are[/].

You are correct to notice that the influence of a plural noun near the verb, even when it is not the formal, or indeed even the notional subject, can cause a plural verb to be used, and that is one of the factors to be taken into consideration. However in the example you give "the origins of the English language" can be considered as a singular item for discussion.

[revel]

Hey all!

I've let this thread go on without my contributions since the "slap on the wrist" received for giving a school teacher's explanation for why something was wrong. That explanation came from having read the written sentence that began this thread. That reaction was because I would have proofread my sentence in the old-fashioned way, which includes identifying the subject of each sentence and checking to make sure the verb agreed in "number". Finding Stephen's latest example in a written form would make me say "origins is plural, thus the verb ought to agree in number."

Yet, if we say that sentence out loud (in which case I would also use "are", but I am an English teacher, and do a lot of exercises and drills with my students and so have the habit of speaking more or less grammatically correctly) the singular verb form might just pop up and the listener would be silly to center his/her attention on the "mistake" when there is a meaning being conveyed which is not at all altered by the number of the verb. I'm not going to assert it as a fact, but I rather doubt that most of us mentally construct an entire sentence before uttering it and so a verb could be made singular or plural either because of notional causes or proximity of a secondary noun in a noun clause, and once again, unless this "slip" significantly alters the meaning of the utterance, I don't think it matters very much. Some might be more careful, or might have the habit of using noun clauses in the subject-slot of their sentences and thus not "slip" and others might be using that particular noun clause for the first time and thus incorrectly number the verb. The spoken word, unless recorded, floats into infinity, we don't remember the sentence said but rather the idea shared (and sometimes not even that). In writing, however, we can always hit the "preview" button and correct before hitting the "submit" button, and as an English teacher, I'm afraid I consider that part of my work with my students (though not always with myself! )

peace,
revel.

[revel]

Hey everyone.

Today I'm controling the shrimp fried rice, so will try to brief.

Here's another example, taken from the news yesterday on Spanish television. A woman is talking about men who abuse their spouses and says something like:

Hay que ayudar a estas personas. (We have to help these people.) Están enfermas. (They are ill.)

What caught my attention was that, though she was refering to men in general, the word she used, personas is of the female gender. Thus, as she continued her statement, she used the feminine form of the adjective, enfermas, still making reference to men. Naturally, had she said "We have to help these men", her adjective would have been masculine, enfermos. Her statement was totally correct, both in grammar and syntax.

Just thought I'd share that tidbit, caught my attention and made me think of this thread.

peace,
revel.

[Stephen Jones]

You were quite right to think of this post revel. An even more apposite point is that La gente - people - is grammatically singular in Spanish, even though it refers to a plural number.

In Spanish, and accoridng to Harzer's earlier post, in German as well, subject verb agreement and gender agreement is decided universally by form, and this form can be entirely independent of the meaning, as shown in the examples you give and the fact that in German, girl - das Mädchen - is neuter.

However in English this is not so. As far as subject verb concordance goes there are three factors to be taken into account:

• The number of the formal subject
  The perceived number of the semantic subject
  The number of any nouns in proxmity to the verb

Harzer is trying to explain matters using only factors one and three and as a result is having as much success as you would have trying to describe the movement of Americans on the first Tuesday of November every four years whilst ignoring the fact that there is a Presidential election on. Or as much success as somebody totally color blind would have describing the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel.

All three factors are often intertwined. Let's look at some examples.
None of the players were injured
Here the grammatical subject may be formally singular (though I would say it is actually zero) but the notional subject is not considered singluar so there is a tendency for the verb to be influenced by the plurality of players. However that last factor may be considered a spurious one, and many, particularly Americans, would use was here.

Not one of the players was (were?) injured.
Here the word one brings more strongly the idea of singiularity with it, and thus the effect of players being plural is weakened.

One of the players was injured.This was Harzer's original example, and the overwhelming consensus was that it were injured is almost never used in this phrase. The reason of course is that one is semantically as well as formally singular.

The phrase The origins of .... language(s) can be perceived as either semantically singular or plural. Look at the examples below.
The origins of the English language is what we will be studying next month.
The origins of language is a highly controversial topic but the origins of the English Language are well documented.

Note that in the second half of the second example we are thinking about different independent origins independently documented, but in the other two examples we wre thinking about the origins of (the English) language as a unitary topic.

[Norm Ryder]

May be it's an Australian thing, Harzer. I haven't noted it down, but I'm sure I've been hearing the singular verb used more and more where you and I would use the plural - and I'm talking about on the radio and TV, not in conversation. I'm also talking about wider contexts than "one of... ".
However, that's just "anecdotal" , so now I'll have to keep my notebook beside me and begin collecting evidence (though whether I have 12 years left ahead of me is another question!)

Harzer, have you come across the work of Pienemann and Johnson from the early 1990s, where they were using string theory to outline the developmental steps in which English structure is learned? Pienemann has moved on to a more complex theory since then; but the application of string theory by Johnson may contribute to your theory of why the proximate noun might control the verb more easily than the distant one.

Cheers

Norm.