Notional Agreement

In Modern English agreement is often a conflict between form and meaning when the principle of grammatical agreement is not observed. It means that the form of some nouns may be singular but the meaning occurs plural, or the form may be plural but the meaning is singular. This type of agreement is sometimes called notional agreement.

1. With subjects expressed by collective nouns which are plural in meaning but singular in form (family, committee, crew, board, team, government, party, army, etc.) the predicate is either in the singular or in the plural; taken as a whole, or a collection of individuals taken separately:

The government has issued a new edict.

The government were divided in their opinion.

My family are all sportsmen.

My family is small.

2. Subjects expressed by collective nouns of multitude (cattle, poultry, police, infantry, clergy, gentry, guard, people) though singular in form, always have a plural verb-predicate.

Note: The noun “ people ” in the meaning “ народ”, “нация ” has a singular verb:

The people were sitting at their doors.

This people inhabits the Northern deserts.

The police are all over the place.

The cattle are all gone, probably driven off.

3. Subjects expressed by nouns denoting measure, weight, time, etc. have a singular verb-predicate when the whole amount is meant, not the units:

Three yards is not enough for this dress.

Ten years is a long time.

A million dollars is a lot of money.

4. Notional agreement is also observed with word-groups, the first element of which denotes quantity, such as a number of, a variety of, a lot of, plenty of, a mass of, etc. In most cases the form of the predicate depends on the second element:

A number of cars were parked before the building.

A great variety of books were recently published.

There were a lot of students at the grand meeting.

There was a lot of time yet.

The nouns “number” and “variety ” as subjects may retain their concrete meaning “ количество”, “разнообразие ”. In this case they are used with the definite article and a singular verb-predicate:

The number of books is not great.

The variety of questions was surprising.

5. Subjects expressed by such invariable plural nouns as goods, contents, riches, clothes, wages, etc. have a plural verb-predicate:

The boy’s clothes were shabby.

The goods have just arrived.

The contents of his letter are unknown.

6. Subjects expressed by such invariable singular nouns as hair, money, gate (ворота), information (сведения), progress (успехи), funeral (похороны), advice have a singular verb-predicate:

His money is in the drawer.

Her hair is long.

The gate was locked.

Subjects expressed by invariable singular nouns ending in –s ( measles, mumps, billiards, dominoes, economics, statistics, news ) have a singular verb-predicate:

No news is good news.

Though nouns in -ics, which are names of sciences and other abstract notions, have a singular agreement, they may have a plural verb-predicate when denoting practical application, qualities, different activities, etc.:

What are your politics?

His phonetics are not bad at all.

Statistics in this article are not quite correct.

Your tactics are obvious.

Note 1. The phrase more than one, though logically plural, always takes the verb in the singular. On the other hand, the expression one or two always takes a plural verb:

There is more than one answer to your question.

There are one or two things I need to discuss with you.

The reason may be the fact that an accompanying noun in the former case is in the singular, while in the latter — in the plural.

Note 2. The plural forms heaps and lots, when used colloquially to mean a large amount or number, take a singular or a plural verb depending on the construction:

There is lots (heaps) more to do

There was lots (heaps) of love in his letter

There are lots (heaps) of people who don’t think so.

Note 3. N ouns like family, team, group, class, party, government take a singular verb when combined with the relative pronoun which, and it can be substituted by it. A plural verb goes with the relative pronoun who, which can be substituted by they:

His family, which is a numerous one, can trace its history back to the Middle Ages.

His family, who are great musicians, have received their education in Paris.

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