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Please consider this sentence:

  • With the emergence of new technologies and their capabilities, variabilities, and time computation has/have given a tremendous breakthrough to the field of electrical engineering.

Here should I use has given or have given?

Edwin Ashworth
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Shane
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  • This sentence has an adverbial that is not clearly delimited (With…) and a subject that is either absent or not shown by the syntax. What is the subject of "has given/have given"? – LPH Apr 30 '20 at 13:34
  • I assume that the intended (compound) subject is [variabilities and time computation]. There should not be a comma before 'and' in that case. Although coordinated subjects are usually/often given a singular verb-form if their referent is best considered unary ('Bacon and eggs is my favourite breakfast', 'Health and Safety is our prime concern'), I can't see that as being the case here. So A and B have. – Edwin Ashworth Apr 30 '20 at 13:35
  • @Shane You need to answer LPH's question about the intended subject of "has/have". – BillJ Apr 30 '20 at 14:12
  • @LPH, I'm not sure about the subject. But what I expect or want "With the emergence" is my subject, what do you think? I Edwin you mean to say, I should use have... – Shane Apr 30 '20 at 14:57
  • @Shane As is this sentence, I don't know what to make of it. After the correction (elimination of comma), everything falls into place (grammatically) and the subject is naturally understood to be as user Edwin Ashworth reads it. I don't understand what you mean when you write "But what I expect or want "With the emergence" is my subject,". – LPH Apr 30 '20 at 15:11
  • @LPH, in simple words, you are just saying the sentence is grammatically oka if I remove only comma before "and" make me correct if I understood wrong. And what I was thinking is as follows, I considered "with the emergence" as the subject of my sentence and considering this subject I tried to use "Have or Has", and I'm not sure whether my understanding is correct or wrong? – Shane Apr 30 '20 at 15:32
  • @Shane That's what I suspected a little! You can sometimes have prepositional phrases taking on the function of subject; this is when the prepositions connote time or space: ref.; because "with" is not in any of those two categories, you can't have the phrase it heads as subject, and it must be an adverbial. – LPH Apr 30 '20 at 15:49

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