When you are writing a sentence like "embracing the variety of human beings brings you happiness", why do you have to write the verb in a singular form?
Asked
Active
Viewed 390 times
1
-
Related question, Singular vs. Plural with Multiple Gerunds as Subject (IE: [Gerund] and [Gerund] are/is [something].)(http://english.stackexchange.com/questions/116240/singular-vs-plural-with-multiple-gerunds-as-subject-ie-gerund-and-gerund). – Jan 27 '16 at 05:45
-
Other verbs? Do you mean "embracing"? That's a verb form (a gerund, actually) acting as the subject of the sentence. Is it singular or plural? Do you mean "beings"? That's an object of the preposition "of" and doesn't govern the verb. – deadrat Jan 27 '16 at 05:45
-
Related question, Singular or plural. I think it is the closest duplicate. – Jan 27 '16 at 05:50
1 Answers
2
The default grammatical number for Subjects is singular. In order to deviate from this, the Subject must be considered plural in some way. "embracing the variety of human beings" does not have any kind of plural meaning, and so we see singular agreement in the verb form.
Araucaria - Him
- 47,146