Question by Forum member Kat Manapat sent through my Facebook Messenger (June 15, 2020):Sir, I have a question. Is the noun phrase that starts with “what” always singular?
Examples:
“
What makes you beautiful
is your smile.”
“
What fuels my passion
is my love.”
Or can it be plural depending on the predicate?
Example:
“
What fuels your passion
are found in your heart.”
(There can be a number of things that can be found inside the heart to serve as inspiration, so can we use “are” here?
My reply to Kat Manapat (June 20, 2020):I don’t think so, Kat; not all noun phrases that begin with the pronoun “what” can be singular. It does beguilingly seem to be the case in the two sample statements you presented: “
What makes you beautiful
is your smile.” “
What fuels my passion
is my love.” The reason is simply that speakers who think so—in this particular case you yourself—already have the mindset that the subject is singular and are just subconsciously but correctly pursuing and tailoring the details of that presumption even as they speak.
Let me explain my point.
This particular usage of the pronoun “what”
is meant for expressions directing attention to a statement that the speaker is about to make, in the sense of the ellipted expression “You know
what?” as in “
What seems to be the matter
is the noisy party next door”
(singular) or “
What lie beneath
are two things:
the treasure you stole, and
the body of its owner”
(plural). There really is no grammatical or semantic limitation to the number—whether singular or plural—of the subjects or objects that “what” can refer to in the predicate of such statements, as we can clearly see in the following examples:
1. “
What make you very untrustworthy
are two things:
your extreme racism and
your being a pathological liar.”
(plural)2. “
What detract from your suitability for this very sensitive position
are these:
your conviction as a youthful sexual offender and
your long bad credit record.” (plural)
As to your question on whether “are” is correctly used in this sentence, “
What fuels your passion
are found in your heart,” my answer is a definite yes, but to avoid any lingering doubt in your listener’s mind, you need to identify at least two of those “fuels” to make the “what” truly plural,” as in, say, this sentence that adds details: “
What fuel your passion
are found in your heart:
your compassion for the oppressed, and
your hatred for their oppressors.”
That’s all.
