In
last week’s column, I pointed out that the pronoun “they” rather than “them” is the correct form of the subject complement in this inverted sentence: “The winners of the contests were (they, them).” I explained that the operative grammar rule is that in English, a pronoun acting as a subject complement always takes the subjective form whether the sentence is in its normative or inverted form.
The normative or regular form of the inverted sentence “The winners of the contests
were they” is, of course, “They
were the winners of the contests,” where there’s perfect subject-verb agreement between the plural subject “they” and the likewise plural past-tense “were” of the linking verb “be.” Always keep in mind that the
subject complement is the word or phrase that comes after the linking verb to identify or describe the subject of the sentence.
IMAGE CREDIT: SLIDEPLAYER.COMBe aware though that inverted sentences in English exhibit a subject-verb agreement peculiarity when the predicate is a noun phrase instead of just a simple noun or pronoun. This peculiarity doesn’t become apparent when there’s no difference in number between the subject and predicate, whether the sentence is in, say, the inverted form “The winners of the contests were they” or in the normative “They were the winners of the contests.” In both sentences, the subject is plural (“the winners of the contests” and “they”), the linking verb is in the plural form (“were” and “were”), and the subject complement is plural as well (“they” and “the winners of the contests).”
But what happens when a normative sentence like, say, “Her pretrial antics
are a needless complication” takes the inverted form? Do we say or write “A needless complication
are her pretrial antics” or “A needless complication
is her pretrial antics” instead?
This may come as a surprise, but a subject-verb agreement peculiarity arises when an English sentence is inverted, in which case the form of the linking verb should agree with the number—and of course also with the tense—of the singular noun phrase to its left instead of the plural subject to its right. Thus, for the normative sentence “Her pretrial antics
are a needless complication,” the grammatically correct inverted construction is this: “A needless complication
is her pretrial antics.”
Let’s take a look at another example for make the idea clearer: the sentence “Those women parading in swimsuits
are definitely a pleasant sight” inverts to the form “Definitely a pleasant sight
is (not
are) those women parading in swimsuits.”
Perhaps a clearer, more practical way of describing this subject-verb agreement peculiarity of inverted sentences is this:
When the subject and predicate of a sentence differs in number, the linking verb agrees with the number of the noun phrase to its left. The normative sentence “What I need
is two round-trip bookings to Puerto Princesa,” thus, inverts to “Two round-trip bookings to Puerto Princesa
are what I need.”
Even if no sentence inversion is involved, we must keep in mind that this English subject-verb agreement rule normally also applies when the subject and predicate of a sentence are both in the form of noun phrases (as opposed to stand-alone nouns or pronouns) and also when they differ in number or person.
In such cases, the form of the linking verb “be” agrees with the preceding noun phrase—the one on the left of the sentence—even if that noun phrase is not logically the subject.We thus say “The immediate cause of her unsettling predicament
is the lewd video clips discovered in her cellular phone,” and not “The immediate cause of her unsettling predicament
are the lewd video clips discovered in her cellular phone.”
Reading those two sentences at least a few times should make the subject-verb agreement peculiarity sink in.
***
MERRY CHRISTMAS AND A HAPPY AND PROSPEROUS NEW YEAR TO ALL OF MY FORUM MEMBERS AND FRIENDS!(Next:
The perfect gerund and its uses) January 2, 2020
This essay, 1,176th of the series, appeared in the column “English Plain and Simple” by Jose A. Carillo in the Campus Press section of the December 26, 2019 print and Internet editions of The Manila Times
, © 2019 by the Manila Times Publishing Corp. All rights reserved.
