Concord between Subject and Predicator in the English Language

., a variety of…, most of…, plenty of …, some of …, the majority of…, agrees with a singular predicator if the noun in the following of-phrase is singular and with a plural predicator if the noun in the following of-phrase is plural (Ginsburg 1979):

A lot of money has been spent and nothing achieved.

A lot of cars were parked in front of the theatre.

The majority of people prefer peace to war.

A variety of causes have to be considered.

Some (most) of the horses in the race were disqualified.

Some (most) of the fortune left has passed to the grandchild.

A number of agrees with a plural predicator; the number, however, takes a singular predicator:

There were a number of people on the beach after lunch.

A number of passengers are reported missing.

The number of victims is higher than was at first thought.

When the subject is expressed by a singular pronoun, includingthe indefinites (they are normally treated as singular): each, either, neither, someone, anyone, somebody, everybody, everyone, nobody, no one, something, nothing, the predicator is in the singular (Crystal 1995):

Either of the examples is correct.

Neither of the answers is wrong.

Someone in there is making a noise.

Everything was ready.

Everybody was glad to see him well again.

Nobody knows where he comes from.

No one was there.

When the sex is not known, or if both males and females are referred to, each and every (one) are normally masculine singular:

Each of us has his duties.

Everyone has to show his passport.

Another area of ambivalence is that of indefinite and negative expressions of amount. For example, in

I’ve ordered the shrubs, but none (of them) have/has yet arrived grammatical concord would suggest that none is singular; but notional concord (we might paraphrase as 'they have not arrived') invites a plural verb. Has is therefore more conventionally 'correct', but have is more idiomatic in speech. These comments may be extended to neither and either as indefinite pronouns:

I sent cards to Mavis and Margery but neither (of them) has/have replied; in fact, I doubt if either (of them) is/are coming.

If a prepositional phrase with a plural complement follows the indefinite construction, a plural verb is favoured not only because of notional concord but because of the proximity rule (Gordon 2000):

none of them are … either of the girls are …

None usually agrees with a plural predicator:

None are so blind as those who won’t see.

Several men were injured but none were killed.

None agrees with a singular predicator when the singular idea is clearly expressed. In the singular it is now usually replaced by no one.

None of them (no one) is going to get anything.

None of the members (no one) has opposed that scheme.

The same proximity principle may lead to plural concord even with the indefinites each, every, everybody, anybody, and nobody, which are otherwise undoubtedly singular:

?Nobody, not even the teachers, were listening

?Every member of that vast crowd of 50,000 people were pleased to see him

Although these sentences might well be uttered in casual speech, or inadvertently written down, most people would probably regard them as ungrammatical, because they flatly contradict grammatical concord (Плоткин 1990).

Other, more acceptable, instances of 'attraction' arise with singular nouns of kind and quantity:

A large number of people have applied for the job.

Those kind/sort/type of parties are very enjoyable. (informal)

The latter illustrates an idiomatic anomaly: there is lack of number concord between the noun and the determiner those, as well as with the verb. The awkwardness can be avoided by rephrasing as Parties of that kind …

The proximity principle, if taken to mean that agreement is determined by whatever immediately precedes the verb, can explain a singular verb in cases of inversion or of an adverbial quasi-subject: Where’s the scissors?, Here’s John and Mary; There’s several bags missing. As what precedes the subject here is not marked for plural, the singular verb follows by attraction. These are colloquial examples; in formal English are would be substituted.

In British English, collective nouns, notionally plural but grammatically singular, obey notional concord in examples such as the following where American English usually has the singular:

The public welcome the decision [1]

The audience were enjoying every minute of it [2]

Although singular and plural verbs are more or less interchangeable in these contexts, the choice is based, if on anything, on whether the group is being considered as a single undivided body, or as a collection of individuals. Thus plural is more likely than singular in [2], because consideration is being given to the individual reactions of members of the audience. Contrastingly, singular has to be used in sentences like The audience was enormous (Quirk 1985: 164).

A collective noun is a word for a group of persons, animals, or objectsconsidered as a single unit. However, the singular form of some collectivenouns may have either a singular or a plural concept. Here belong, e. g. army, assembly, audience, band, board, class, committee, company, council, clergy, club, crew, crowd, enemy, faculty, family, firm, government, group, jury, labour, panel, party, public, team. If the collective noun that occurs assubject is regarded as a unit the predicator is in the singular; if attention isbeing paid to the individual members of the unit, the predicator is in the plural (Антрушина 2001).

His audience is middle-class people.

The audience are requested not to leave the theatre before the national anthem is finished. The committee has promised to improve the sports facilities.

The committee have disagreed among themselves.

The enemy was beaten.

The enemy were flying from the battlefield.

My family does not share your opinion.

My family are early risers.

The government has resigned.

The government differ in their opinion.

Conclusion

The main sentence parts, subject and predicate, apparently cannot be loose, as they form the backbone of the sentence from which other parts may be «detached» .

English is characterized as a highly analytical language. In contrast to such a synthetic language as Russian, the degree of subject and predicator agreement is quite limited to the linking verb be as to concord in number and person (in its present simple forms), number (in its past simple forms), as well as to non-modal verbs, having -s in their third singular in their present simple forms. Modal verbs, in contrast to other Teutonic languages, such as German or Dutch, do not differ in their forms agreeing with subject in its singular and plural forms.

The English grammatical forms of explicit subject-verb concord are very scarce, the inflexion marking the third person singular present, and some special forms of the verb be. These scarce forms are dynamically correlated with the other, grammatically non-agreed forms.

Beside the grammatical forms of agreement, the predicative person is directly reflected upon the verb-predicate as such; the very semantics of the person determines the subject reference of the predicative event (action, state, quality). Thus, the subject dominates over the predicate by its specific substantive categories in both agreed, and non-agreed forms of predicative connection unconditionally.

As for the predicate dominating the subject in its own sphere of grammatical functions, this fact is clearly demonstrated by the correlation of the sentence and the corresponding noun-phrase. Namely, the transformation of the sentence into the noun-phrase places the predicate in the position of the head-word, and the subject, in the position of the adjunct.

One of the distinguished features of defining English as a highly analytical language is an opportunity or necessity to use singular forms of the predicator when talking about time, measure or distance, weight, height or amount of money and an opportunity or necessity to use plural forms when using collective nouns as the subject.

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