Snow

[Mark Mandel]

On Mon, Mar 2, 2009 at 9:02 AM, Jonathan Lighter <wuxxmupp2000 at gmail.com>wrote:

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


> 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.
>

So, would you say "There are a lot of soup in my bowl / our bowls"?

If you don't like that sentence and would use a singular verb in it, then
you're at least partly observing transparency (thanks, Arnold):

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.
>

m a m

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