The
prisoner made no comment
He s
having a bath/a holiday (BrE)/a smoke
He took a rest/a vacation (AmE)/a dislike to
her/a dive into the water
He
gave a jump/a yell, etc
Have
and take in these examples have agentive subjects (have being the typical
British, and take the typical American form), while give usually has an
involuntary force and therefore accompanies an affected subject.
7.16
Affected
indirect object
There
is only one exception to the rule that the indirect object has the roll of
recipient : this is when give (or sometimes related verbs like pay, owe) has an
effected object as direct object and an affected object as indirect object:
I
paid her a visit ( I visited her )
I
gave the door a couple of kicks ( I kicked the door a couple of times )
These
clauses, as the paraphrases make clear, are equivalent to clauses with a direct
object as affectcd object.
17.7
Summary
Although
the semantic functions of the elements (particularly S and O) ire quite varied,
there are certain clear restrictions, such as that the object cannot be
agentive or instrument ; that a subject (except in the passive) cannot be
effected ; that an indirect object can have only two functions those of affected
and recipient . The assignment of a function to the subject seems to have the
following system of priorities:
If there
is an agentive , it is S; if not,
If
there is an instrument , it is S; if not,
If there
is an affected , it is S; if not,
If there
is a locative or temporal or eventive , it may be S; if not,
The
prop word it is S.
Naturally,
where the passive transformation applies, it transfers the role of the direct
or indirect object to the subject.
Concord
7.18
Subject-verb
concord
The
most important type of concord in English is concord of number between subject
and verb. Thus (3) and (4) are ungrammatical:
(1) The window is open (3)*The
window are open
(sing+sing) (sing+plur)
(2) The windows are open (4)*The windows is open
(plur+plur) (plur+sing)
A
clause in the position of subject counts as singular for purposes of concord :
How they got there doesn t concern met To treat them as hostages is criminal.
The same is true of prepositional phrases, etc, acting as subject: After the
exams is the time to relax, etc. Nominal relative clauses on the other hand,
since they are equivalent to noun phrases (11.13), may have plural as well as
singular concord: What were once human dwellings are now nothing but piles of
rubble.
7.19
Notional,
concord, and proximity
Two
factors interfere with concord as presented in 7.18. Notional concord is
agreement of verb with subject according to the idea of number rattier than the
actual presence of the grammatical marker for that idea. Thus the government is
treated as plural in the government have broken all their promises (BrE), as is
shown not only by the plural verb have, but also by the pronoun their.
7.21 Coordinated
subject
The
principle of proximity denotes agreement of the verb with whatever
noun or pronoun closely precedes it, sometimes in preference to agreement with
the headword of the subject:
No
one except his own supporters agreewith him
One in ten take drugs
Collective nouns
In
BrE, collective nouns, notionally plural but grammatically singular, obey
notional concord in examples such as the following where AmE usually has the
singular:
The
public are tired of demonstrations [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 (c/4.62). 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.
Coordinated subject
7.21
When a subject consists of two or more noun phrases
coordinated by and, a distinction has to be made between appositional
and non-appositional coordination. Undernon-appositional coordination we include cases that can be treated
as an implied reduction of two clauses. These have a verb in the plural:
Tom and Mary ore now ready (Tom is
now ready and Mary is - now ready)
What
I say and what I think are my own affair (What I say is ... and what I
think is …."
A singular
verb is used with conjoinings which represent a single entity:
The hammer
and sickle was flying from a tall flag pole
Conjoinings
expressing a mutual relationship, even though they can only indirectly be
treated as reductions of clauses in this way, also take a plural verb:
Your
problem and mine are similar ( Your problem is similar to mine and mine
is similar to yours)
With
the less common APPOSITIONALcoordination, however, no such reduction is possible at all, for the coordinate
structures refer to the I same thing. Hence a singular verb is used:
This temple of ugliness and memorial to Victorian bad taste waserected at the Queen s express wish
The two opening noun phrases here both refer to the same
thing. The following example, however, is ambiguous and could have either a singular
or plural verb according as the brother and editor are one person or two:
His younger brother and the subsequent editor of his
collected papers was/were with him at his death-bed
Some latitude is allowed in the interpretation of abstract
nouns since it is not always easy to decide if they represent one quality or
two:
Your fairness and impartialityhas/have been much appreciated
7.22
A
single noun head with coordinate modifiers may imply two separate sentences (cf9.33),
with the result that a plural verb may follow a singular non-count.noun subject
quite legitimately:
Good anti bad taste are inculcated by example ( Good
taste is ... and bad taste is ...)
A similar collapsing of coordinate subjects into a single
structure is observed when the subject is a clause:
What
I say and think are no business
of yours (W What I say is . . "and what I think is . ..)
where the alternative with iswould mean
That which I say and think is no
business of yours
7.23
Concord
involving (either ...) or is illustrated as follows:
Either the Mayor or his deputy is bound to come [1]
Either the
strikers or the bosses have misunderstood [2]
?Either
your brakes or your eyesight is at fault [3
]
Either your eyesight or your brakesare at fault [4]
No problem arises with [1] and [2],
but with [3] there is divided usage, singular nor plural seeming right. So too:
He asked whether one lecture or two ?was ?were to be given . With [4],
the principle of proximity intervenes and the plural phrase
determines the number of the verb
Indefinite expressions of amount
7.24
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 toe is more idiomatic
in speech. These comments may be extended to neither and eitheras 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:
none of them are ... either
of the girls are ...
7.25
The same
proximity principle may lead to plural concord even with the indefiniteseach, 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