sokenyou wrote:
Hi Everyone,
Is 'ALL' singular or plural? Or it depends on the last word? How does it change if it is a 'All of'?
Please help.
Examples:
(1) All is fine
(2) All four of them are good
(3) All men in this club are single
Thanks a lot!
You're right, "all" is neither plural nor singular. It's a determiner, and can be used with both count and non-count nouns and on its own. You've come up with some really good example sentences. Let's look at them each in turn.
(1) All is fine.We could also write this as
(1a)
Everything is finewithout changing the meaning of the sentence.
Similarly, the opposite of the sentence would be:
(1b?)[/i]Nothing is fine.[/i]
And we also have
(1c) It is fine.
(2) All four of them are goodLet's think about this sentence:
(2a)
The four of them are good.You wouldn't ask if
the is singular or plural, right? Instead, it's the noun that comes after
the that determines sing/pl. For example:
(2b) The
cat is black. (cat=sing)
(2c) The
zits on her legs
are really ugly. (problems=pl)
(3) All men in this club are single
Check this out. We could rewrite this:
(3a) The men in this club are all single.
(3b) Men in this club are single.
So, the
all in this sentence is fulfilling another role of determiners by giving emphasis (emphasizing that being single is something that each man in the club is).
Hope that helps.