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I have a very quick question that makes me stuck when I read magazines in particular.

The issue is the usage of that. I am totally aware of its usage in some examples but in some cases, it makes me totally confuse and cannot figure out what it refers to it.

Some examples;

The problem that now arises seems to be quite serious. [relative]

The problem arises now.
The problem seems to be quite serious.
The problem that economics is getting worse seems to be quite serious.

The problem is economics is getting worse
The problem seems quite serious.

All good so far.

However, some examples making me confuse is as follows.

Dislike of Mr Erdogan is one of the few things that unites all Germany’s political families. (Excerpt from The Economist Magazine)

Here, as far as I know before that there is a noun called things, but after that it says unites not unite. (Things are plural and In my opinion, it should have been written unite given that it refers to things)

All I know is that "that" refers to something mentioned right before itself.

Am I mistaken? Can "that" refer to something I cannot figure? ( In this case, maybe it refers to "one of the things")

Could anyone shed some light on that issue making me bothered?

Matt E. Эллен
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Sercan Altun
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  • Newspapers make mistakes, too. – michael.hor257k Sep 27 '18 at 08:42
  • "One of the" always takes the singular. – Kris Sep 27 '18 at 08:57
  • Yes, that refers back to one of the things, why the doubt? – Kris Sep 27 '18 at 08:58
  • @michael.hor257k That's no "mistake" at all. See my comment above. – Kris Sep 27 '18 at 08:59
  • See also" [ell.se] Good Luck. – Kris Sep 27 '18 at 08:59
  • I was assuming "that" only refers to only the noun before itself, in this case : things. But it seems "that" can refer not just right before itself , cannot it? – Sercan Altun Sep 27 '18 at 09:09
  • In "Dislike of Mr Erdogan is one of the few things that unites all Germany’s political families", the relative clause modifies "things", but singular override ("unites") is possible here and is presumably motivated by the presence of singular "one". – BillJ Sep 27 '18 at 09:13
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    @Kris one of (the things that unite) vs (one of the things) that unites. – Lawrence Sep 27 '18 at 10:52
  • Huh @Lawrence ? What does the second parsing even mean? Being grammatical alone is not enough. (Also at the up voter to the comment.) – Kris Oct 01 '18 at 10:21
  • "I was assuming "that" only refers to only the noun before itself," -- firstly, "before" need not mean "immediately before", it can be anywhere before; and moreover, "one of the things" is a phrasal noun, the whole phrase is a single unit, so it is still immediately before that. HTH. – Kris Oct 01 '18 at 10:24
  • @Kris In the Erdogan quote, the second parsing is idiomatic: the dislike is something ("one of the things") that unite*s* - singular agreement. The first parsing is also grammatical: the "things" (plural) that unite include their dislike for that individual. – Lawrence Oct 01 '18 at 10:54
  • @Lawrence It's grammatical, of course. But it leaves "one of the things" hanging. Please revisit. (I may be missing a point at the moment, so will revisit later, too.) – Kris Oct 01 '18 at 11:08

2 Answers2

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The choice of singular for agreement with 'one' is grammatically possible here, but it needs an external context to define somehow 'the few things' mentioned (otherwise, the plural 'unite' would be more logical). For example:

There are some things one must take into account. [the sentence with '... one of the few things...'] Another thing is important for understanding why...

The actual previous context (3 sentences) describes some factors and events (= things), not greeted in Germany by non-Turkish population. Probably, that's enough to be referred to as another part of 'the few things' in that sentence, and the choice of 'that unites' makes sense.

https://www.economist.com/europe/2018/09/22/turkeys-president-visits-germany-hopes-of-a-reset-are-too-optimistic

Alex_ander
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  • So, all I understand is that "that" does not need to refer to directly right before itself, but can refer also to something mentioned before. In this case, things that unite vs. one of the things that unites... – Sercan Altun Sep 27 '18 at 13:49
  • The antecedent of a relative pronoun may be a noun, a pronoun, a phrase, or a clause. https://www.testden.com/toefl/english-grammar-for-students/Relative-Pronouns.html In our case we have a noun phrase 'one of the few things', immediately preceding the relative pronoun 'that'. Just one of 2 things (either that noun phrase or its last noun) agrees with the verb in number and can be the antecedent of 'that'. So, depending on type of agreement (singular or plural), and in both cases the antecedent is clear and immediately precedes 'that' (not sure how strict that rarely mentioned rule is). – Alex_ander Sep 27 '18 at 15:53
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  • "X is one of the few things that unite..."
  • "Xs are 5 of the few things that unite..."
  • "X is the single thing that unites..."
  • "X is the very thing that unites..."

It's not the 'one' with which the 'unite/s' has to agree, but the 'things', as I hope my examples illustrate.

Algol60
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