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Which of the following is correct?

I came across this sentence when reading the NY Mag; the writer produced sentence A.

A: It’s also a real biological feature, a specialized bundle of cells that regulates our cyclical processes.

B: It’s also a real biological feature, a specialized bundle of cells that regulate our cyclical processes.

I guess the question boils down to what noun "that" refers to. When I was looking through a grammar book yesterday, the author specifically mentions that relative pronouns like that and which refer to the first noun/pronoun before, which should be "cells" instead of "bundle", making B correct

Leo O
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    My personal preference would be for the singular form as I would expect that it is the bundle of cells that does the regulating, not the individual cells working autonomously. The human brain can be thought of as a very large bundle of cells but an individual neuron has very little effect on its own. – BoldBen Oct 08 '21 at 05:59

1 Answers1

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The form “X of Y that Z” can be ambiguous when “X of Y” is a noun phrase because Z could refer to the noun Y or the whole noun phrase “X of Y”.

In your example, the potential ambiguity is resolved by grammatical agreement. Sentence A requires singular agreement, so “regulates” matches the singular “bundle of cells”. Sentence B requires plural agreement, so “regulate” matches the plural “cells”.

Lawrence
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