Snow

[Arnold Zwicky]

On Mar 2, 2009, at 6:02 AM, Jon Lighter wrote:

> In my world (and I'm quite comfortable there) "[a] lot" and "[a]
> number" require
> plural verbs.  It has nothing to do with being objects of
> prepositions.

in my world too.  and in MWDEU's world.

> The general drift of American English over many years, however, has
> been to
> make the verb agree with an immediately preceding noun, regardless
> of logic
> or traditional syntax, though the singular seems to me to be
> preferred in
> most cases.

i don't think it's agreement with the nearest that's the dominant
factor here.  instead, the agreement is "notional", and some N1s in "a
N1 of N2" have been reinterpreted as determiners rather than heads,
with the result that N1 is "transparent  to" the number (and count/
mass status) of N2.  "a lot" and "a number" are now transparent in
standard english, and some other N1s are variably transparent.

transparency is maintained even when N2 is not the nearest noun to the
verb, as in existentials ("There are a number of problems with your
account") and questions ("Were a number of your professors trained at
MIT?").

> This used to be only in speech, but I'm starting to see it more and
> more in
> "competently" edited print (though there it is still infrequent).

agreement with the nearest certainly does occur (i have a large
collection of examples).  it's been commented on in the advice
literature for a *long* time now. i have no evidence that its
frequency has been increasing in edited print.  (though certainly it
would seem that it's increasing in print in general, simply because
we're exposed to much more informal writing than we used to be.)

arnold

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