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Sub-verb agreement

vishalkumar4mba

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22 Jan 2017, 09:32

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I am bit confused on the subject verb agreement on the below one particularly.

This is one of the cars that belong/belongs to him.

This is one of the questions that is/are incorrect.

Can someone explain this ???

If I go by the logic of quantity preposition phrases, both one of the cars and one of the question will be singular.

Thanks!!

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22 Jan 2017, 10:31

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Prepositional phrases can never be the subject of a sentence. So it should be singular. Though, in many gmat club discussions I have read that it should me singular, I found this concept a bit different in gmat club grammar book page 30. To my knowledge it should me singular. Hope this helps.

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22 Jan 2017, 11:10

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Following are three rules used for One of structure:

"One of" Structure & Verb
Structure	Verb
"One of" + "plural noun"	Singular Verb
"One of" + "plural noun" + "that"	Plural Verb
"The One of" + "plural noun" + "that"	ALWAYS Singular Verb

Using rule-2 correct version of your sentences are:

This is one of the cars that belong to him.
This is one of the questions that are incorrect.

P.S. - For Rule-2: In a very complex sentence, singular/plural will depend on meaning.

I Hope this clears the doubt

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22 Jan 2017, 13:14

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vishalkumar4mba

Think about the structure of your sentence as follows:

This is one of the cars that belong/belongs to him.

This is one of (some group of things). At this point, the sentence is grammatically correct: you'd say 'This is one of (a group of objects)'. Now, we just have to figure out how to phrase the 'a group of objects' part of the sentence correctly.

In general, would you say 'the cars that belong to him', or 'the cars that belongs to him'? It should be the former, since 'belong' is the action that goes with the plural noun 'cars'.

Since you'd always use 'the cars that belong to him', and 'the cars that belong to him' describes a group of objects, you'd always say 'This is one of the cars that belong to him.'

---

It does change when you say 'This is the one of the cars that belongs to him'. Now, we're not saying that the whole group of cars belongs to him. We're saying that there's some group of cars, and 'the one of the cars', which is singular, belongs to him. I'm not exactly sure, from a grammatical perspective, why this change happens - but it has something to do with the role of 'the' as a definite article.

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23 Jan 2017, 21:42

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ccooley

vishalkumar4mba

Thanks !! This helps.

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14 Nov 2021, 01:31

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Dear Team,

Please confirm if following sentence is correct by both grammar and meaning:
One of the chairs that are broken is repaired by carpenter.

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14 Nov 2021, 06:07

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priyanshu14

Dear Team,

Please confirm if following sentence is correct by both grammar and meaning:
One of the chairs that are broken is repaired by carpenter.

That sentence is close to correct, and it is almost entirely grammatically correct, but the tenses are not quite logical since a chair that has been repaired would no longer be "one of the chairs that are broken."

Also, "carpenter" needs "a" or "the" before it.

The tenses in the following version work more logically with each other.

One of the chairs that were broken has been repaired by a carpenter.

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14 Nov 2021, 10:02

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MartyTargetTestPrep

priyanshu14

Dear Team,

Please confirm if following sentence is correct by both grammar and meaning:
One of the chairs that are broken is repaired by carpenter.

Yes, I like the blue-altered sentence above. Note, too, that you could write a slightly different sentence that would convey that the carpenter was in the process of repairing a chair:

One of the chairs that are broken is being repaired by a/the carpenter.

Perhaps this is closer to the idea you had in mind when you posed the question? In any case, you now have two valid sentences to consider. (Many people are unnecessarily afraid of being, but it is, in fact, just a word, and sometimes the context of a sentence calls for it.)

Good luck with your studies.

- Andrew

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14 Nov 2021, 21:51

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priyanshu14

Dear Team,

Please confirm if following sentence is correct by both grammar and meaning:
One of the chairs that are broken is repaired by carpenter.

Hi Priyanshu, looking at this sentence purely from a subject-verb agreement perspective, the sentence has two clauses:
(i) One of the chairs is repaired by carpenter.
(ii) that are broken

Notice that each of the above clause has its own subject and verb.

In clause (i), "one" is the subject and hence, the correct verb is "is".

In clause (ii), "that" is the subject (referring to "chairs") and hence, the correct verb is "are".

p.s. Our book EducationAisle Sentence Correction Nirvana discusses "one" of the mysteries, its application and examples in significant detail. If you or someone is interested, PM me your email-id; I can mail the corresponding section.

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29 Apr 2023, 23:46

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HKD1710

Following are three rules used for One of structure:

"One of" Structure & Verb
Structure	Verb
"One of" + "plural noun"	Singular Verb
"One of" + "plural noun" + "that"	Plural Verb
"The One of" + "plural noun" + "that"	ALWAYS Singular Verb

Hi, wonder if anyone could give an example or two of complex sentences where rule 2 may depend on the meaning?

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