Snow

[Laurence Horn]

At 10:25 PM -0500 3/1/09, Jonathan Lighter wrote:
>The object of a preposition cannot be the subject of a sentence. So
>"inches," not "snow," is (not "are") the subject, and "are" (not "is") is
>correct.
>
>JL

So "A lot of people was in the room"?  "A number of objections was raised"?

Some historical prep. objects are now heads, e.g. [A lot of][people].
"A number of X" works that way for most (all?) speakers too.  I could
go either way with "13 inches of snow": "snow" as head noun with "13
inches of" as quantifier (as with "a lot of") or "inches" as head
with "of snow" as prepositional phrase; I'd get "is" and "are"
respectively.

LH

>
>On Sun, Mar 1, 2009 at 7:51 PM, Bill Palmer <w_a_palmer at bellsouth.net>wrote:
>
>>  ---------------------- Information from the mail header
>>  -----------------------
>>  Sender:       American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
>>  Poster:       Bill Palmer <w_a_palmer at BELLSOUTH.NET>
>>  Subject:      Snow
>>
>>
>>-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
>>
>>  Bianca Solorzano of CBS News reported this evening that "13 inches of snow
>>  are expected in New York."
>>
>>  The expectations are for what: inches or snow?
>>
>>  "Is" or "are"?
>>
>>  What does the academy say?
>>
>>  Bill Palmer
>>
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>>  The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org
>>
>
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