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Can anyone kindly explain why this sentence is correct?

Complex musical numbers are a defining characteristic of most Italian films.

HeyDoeFarm
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    Yes: number mismatches between subject and predicative are common, cf. "The only thing we need now is new curtains". Btw, the subject is plural not compound. – BillJ Aug 05 '19 at 08:46
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    The sentence is fine grammatically, but nonsense semantically unless "Italian" is a misspelling of "Indian". – RegDwigнt Aug 05 '19 at 09:56
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    A defining characteristic suggests that there are other defining characteristics. The defining characteristic suggests that complex musical numbers are the main one. And yeah, this has to be Bollywood, not Cinecittá. – KarlG Aug 05 '19 at 11:58
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    A defining characteristic of Italian films is not a subject; it is a noun phrase that is the predicate of the sentence, following the be form that is the required auxiliary for predicate nouns. He is an idiot, She is a genius, They are the ones, all use predicate noun phrases, following be, using whatever articles those noun phrases use. They are not subjects; they are predicates and they don't have to agree with anything. – John Lawler Aug 05 '19 at 15:27
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    I won't edit as this renders J Lawler's comment n/a, but OP probably intends 'Can a plural subject be followed by a complement beginning “a…”? BillJ assumes this in his answer. This makes the question a duplicate; otherwise, it's possibly ELL level. (plural vs singular noun addresses this.) And Agreement in singular noun - is - are plural noun. – Edwin Ashworth Aug 06 '19 at 13:43
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    "Predicate" is a logical term, not a syntactic one. Auxiliaries (including all forms of be) are part of the verb phrase, which continues with the main verb or non-verbal predicates (noun phrases, prepositional phrases, adjective phrases, etc). Verbs are prototype predicates, so you don't have to call them predicate verbs, but that's what they are. The important thing is to distinguish the subject NP from the VP. Anything inside the VP is not part of the subject. – John Lawler Aug 06 '19 at 15:48

1 Answers1

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In a comment, John Lawler wrote:

A defining characteristic of Italian films is not a subject; it is a noun phrase that is the predicate of the sentence, following the be form that is the required auxiliary for predicate nouns. He is an idiot, She is a genius, They are the ones, all use predicate noun phrases, following be, using whatever articles those noun phrases use. They are not subjects; they are predicates and they don't have to agree with anything.

tchrist
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