While working on the draft of a blog post, we've come across this dilemma and, since we're all non-native speakers, we didn't come to a consensus:
Our focus are/is projects that...
We're split pretty much 50/50 between "are" and "is".
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1Our focus comes first, and is a noun, so it is the subject. If you had "In our focus are projects that ...", the subject would be projects because in our focus is a prepositional phrase. – Peter Shor Jun 13 '17 at 12:41
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2Avoid the issue. Say: We focus on projects that.... – Arm the good guys in America Jun 13 '17 at 13:01
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Thanks! @PeterShor funny coincidence that you should answer this question that originated from a blog post about a company in the cryptocurrency space – UloPe Jun 13 '17 at 14:49
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SE has a wonderful site for English Language Learners which you might want to try. – aparente001 Jun 14 '17 at 04:02
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@aparente001 Why? – Araucaria - Him Jun 27 '17 at 20:40
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@Araucaria - I don't get it. OP talks about being part of a group of non-native speakers of English, which is what ELL SE is designed for. If they like it, great, if they don't like it, no harm done. Is there something I'm missing here? – aparente001 Jun 28 '17 at 03:25
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@aparente001 I was just interested in why you were letting them know ... Wasn't complaining ;) – Araucaria - Him Jun 28 '17 at 13:54
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1@Araucaria - Oh, thanks for explaining. "Why?" just by itself was too cryptic for me! // To answer your question, "since we're all non-native speakers" caught my eye. It's a great site and I think it may be helpful for OP, et al. – aparente001 Jun 28 '17 at 14:45
2 Answers
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For future reference, the grammatical rule is that where verb agreement occurs (and it's much less common than it used to be in English), it only occurs with the noun phrase that is the subject of the agreeing verb. I.e, only the subject matters.
In the sentence fragment given as an example
- [Our focus] is [projects that...]
Our focus is the subject, and it's singular. So this sentence should have is.
But this is an equative sentence, and equative sentences can swap NPs
- [Projects that...] are [our focus]
and the other NP is plural. So this sentence should have are.
English verb agreement is on the way out; it's only relevant to auxiliaries with pronouns (which are mostly contracted anyway), and to third person singular present tense verbs. Other verb forms don't care whether the subject is singular or plural, and this tendency has been constant for at least 1000 years in English. So don't worry too much about it.
John Lawler
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Could you give some examples of English verb agreement being on the way out and other verb forms that don't care whether the verb is singular or plural. As long as I have spoken English, it is only relevant to any verb in the present tense (or used as an auxiliary taken from the present tense) in the third person, as you said. But I don't get the "on the way out". – Lambie Jun 13 '17 at 14:49
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Here's a link to the conjugation of the Old English verb bycgan 'buy'. There used to be a whole lot more morphology in English than there is now. – John Lawler Jun 13 '17 at 14:58
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1Sorry, that does not answer the question for me. I want an example in modern English of verb agreement being on the way out. I simply cannot understand what you mean. – Lambie Jun 13 '17 at 15:02
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If you'll look at the chart, you'll see that verb agreement used to be required for verbs in all tenses (present indicative, present subjunctive, past indicative, and past subjunctive). Verbs used to agree with person and number of the subject in all those tenses, not just present tense. And the patterns were not simple, and they involved more changes in the verb than just adding a suffix or not. Probly by the time your great-great-grandchildren are learning English they won't hafta do it. – John Lawler Jun 13 '17 at 15:17
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Except in certain specific situations, which are frequently contracted. – John Lawler Jun 13 '17 at 19:58
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+1 Well, that's true, but in the present tense in general really, isn't it? (sorry, am otherwise bored and reading recent grammar posts, lots of which are naturally yours. I'm not following you around!!) – Araucaria - Him Jun 27 '17 at 23:13
