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Which of the following is correct:

  1. One in 5 people in that area are Chinese
  2. One in 5 people in that area is a Chinese

I am confused as different resources provide a different answer.

One of the resources says that people is not the subject of the sentence. One is the subject and in 5 people is a prepositional phrase. Since “one” is singular, therefore the correct usage is
“One in 5 people in that area is a Chinese.”

However, I am not convinced with this argument. I have found the other usage almost everywhere else.

Mari-Lou A
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nish
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    Please, please cite the resources and the explanations (or rules) they supply. It will show the community you have researched, and it might be interesting to see if how different resources approach the problem. – Mari-Lou A Nov 17 '17 at 08:59
  • @Mari-LouA I have updated my question to add some more details. – nish Nov 17 '17 at 09:09
  • Both are possible. The subject has the plural "people" as head, so a plural verb would follow the simple agreement rule. But in this case, the verb can be singular as well as plural, where the optional singular override is clearly motivated by the presence of one. – BillJ Nov 17 '17 at 09:10
  • @BillJ I would like to argue that we are not talking about one person. We are talking about a group of people. But I am not sure about it. – nish Nov 17 '17 at 09:13
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    You didn't cite the resources. You haven't told us the titles of the books. Are they written in a foreign language? Interestingly, you wrote One of the resources says. You didn't use the plural form of the verb say. – Mari-Lou A Nov 17 '17 at 09:13
  • @Mari-LouA In One of the resources says we are talking about a single resource. But in One in 5 people, we are talking about a group of people. WDYT? – nish Nov 17 '17 at 09:16
  • I only post answers in comments when a question is off-topic, very easy and doomed to be closed, or when I am not 100% convinced. – Mari-Lou A Nov 17 '17 at 09:21
  • On the other hand, our friend @BillJ has a habit of writing answers in comments when the question is also on topic. Why don't you post an answer? – Mari-Lou A Nov 17 '17 at 09:24
  • The subject is One in 5 people in that area. Agreement is normally with the head of the subject, which in this case is the plural noun people, but as I said, singular override is possible here. – BillJ Nov 17 '17 at 10:25

1 Answers1

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The sentence can be split up as so:

[One in 5] [people] [in that area] [are] [Chinese]

  • [One in five] - describes/mopdified the subject "people"
  • [in that area] -just gives us a location that modifies the subject and tell us "what kind of people"
  • [are] - verb, must agree with main subject "people"
  • [Chinese] - is the object and irrelevant for your specific question.

"People" is the plural of person, therefore the correct answer is "are" and thus

(1) One in 5 people in that area are Chinese

SonOfPingu
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  • If we expanded your answer, the logical inference would be that "One person in that area ARE Chinese" Hmm... One person in five IS Chinese or For every five people, one IS Chinese – Mari-Lou A Nov 17 '17 at 09:29
  • No. "Person" is singular. So "one person is Chinese" – SonOfPingu Nov 17 '17 at 09:51
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    Yes, one in 5 functions as a determiner to the head word people. And I agree that plural are follows the simple agreement rule. But singular agreement is also possible here partly because of the presence of one and partly because of the synonymy with One person in 5 in that area is Chinese, where singular person is head. – BillJ Nov 17 '17 at 10:27
  • Yes, you are right. I was still thinking of the original phrase with "people" not a new phrase "one person in 5" – SonOfPingu Nov 17 '17 at 10:37