PICTURE SOURCE: englishmajor2007.wikispaces.com
A clause demands a sg. predicator:
[How you got there] doesn’t concern me.
[To treat them as hostages] is criminal.
[Smoking cigarettes] is dangerous to your health.
pP and adverbs functioning as S demand a sg. verb:
[In the evenings] is best for me.
[Slowly] does it!
Nominal relative clauses (on the continuum from clause to noun phrase) – number
depends on the interpretation of the number of the wh-elements (determiners
what and whatever) – the number of the determined noun:
[What were supposed to be new proposals] were in fact modifications of earlier
ones.
[What was once a palace] is now a pile of rubble.
[Whatever book a Times reviewer praises] sells well.
A tendency in informal speech for is/was to follow there in existential sentences:
There’s hundreds of people on the waiting list. * (in writing)
Interrogative who/what as S – sg. predicator even when plurality is expected as the
answer:
Who is making all that noise? The Brown children.
Who have not received their passes? (possible only if the pl. S is expected as an answer).
Plural phrases (including coordinate phrases) – sg. if they are as names, title,
quotations etc.:
- predicator is normally sg. because the interpretation is sg.
Crime and Punishment is a good book, but The Brothers Karamazov is
undoubtedly a masterpiece.
- titles of some works (collections of stories), either sg. or pl.
The Canterbury Tales is/are …
SOURCE:
http://www.englistika.info/podatki/2_letnik/concord.pdf
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