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Consider the following sentence:

(1) The project will include Alice, Bob, and an expected two new hires.

This sounds correct to me; it means we are expecting to hire two new people and will put them on the project together with Alice and Bob. But logically, it seems bizarre to have a singular article "an" together with a number "two"; in most cases a noun quantified by a number word doesn't also get an article:

(2) The project will include Alice, Bob, and two people from marketing.

But removing the "an" from sentence (1) sounds definitely wrong to me:

(3*) The project will include Alice, Bob, and expected two new hires.

Although it could be fixed by inverting the word order:

(4) The project will include Alice, Bob, and two expected new hires.

What is the rule that makes (1) grammatical?

Mike Shulman
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  • I wonder if it has something to do with "an" referring to an implied "expectation." As in: "...and an expectation of two new hires." But, not only is this changing the meaning of the original, but there is no grammatical reason to support it that I'm aware of. In any event, we can't say "...and an expected hires." which leads me to think that it is the number two that is what is being expected. If so, the number two is itself singular, even if it characterizes a plurality of hires. – Nonnal Oct 30 '15 at 21:48
  • @Nonnal you're right, it is essentially a duplicate. However, I wouldn't regard the accepted answer there as answering the question. – Mike Shulman Nov 12 '15 at 07:26

1 Answers1

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This may be too comma ridden, but if I had to say it that way I would go with:
The project will include Alice, Bob, and, an expected, two new hires.
or possibly better:
The project will include Alice, Bob; plus, an expected, two new hires.

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