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I’ve seen those two quite dif­fer­ent us­ages of that fol­low­ing an -of- prepo­si­tional phrase con­nect­ing two noun phrases and via the prepo­si­tion of, one in which it is used to re­fer to the first noun phrase and other times to the sec­ond noun phrase, at least in some writ­ings.

For ex­am­ple, it refers to the first noun in the -of- prepo­si­tional phrase here in sen­tence (1) be­cause only is sin­gu­lar like the verb:

  1. [One] of them [that is red is running away] from here.

But in this sec­ond sen­tence, the that refers in­stead to the sec­ond el­e­ment of the -of- prepo­si­tional phrase be­cause it has a plu­ral verb and so must re­fer to the plu­ral , not to the sin­gu­lar :

  1. There’s one of [them that are unable to continue].

But now, ap­par­ently, the that in sen­tence (2) refers in­stead to the sec­ond noun phrase.

Which of the two dis­tinct us­ages shown above is cor­rect — or in­cor­rect?

Per­son­ally, I con­sider the first us­age to be the only cor­rect one. If the sec­ond us­age is wrong, what ap­proach am I al­lowed to use to un­am­bigu­ously re­fer to the sec­ond noun phrase?

In other words...

When the gram­mat­i­cal num­ber of dif­fers from that of so that just one is sin­gu­lar and the other plu­ral, you can al­ways tell which is in­tended pro­vided that the verb is in the present tense or that it uses be (because was and were are dis­tinct in the past tense just as is and are are distinct in the present tense).

But when both and have the same gram­mat­i­cal num­ber, or when the verb is in the past tense and is­n’t be, then un­less they ex­ists a rule telling you which is which, you can­not au­to­mat­i­cally and unerringly iden­tify the an­tecedent of that.

What’s the rule we should use here, both as writer/speaker and reader/lis­tener, to guar­an­tee un­der­stand­ing of the intended antecedent?

tchrist
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Akari
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1 Answers1

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Like most questions we get here, the question as asked is based on a number of misconceptions. As pointed out in comments, but since comments are to be hidden, we hafta start over with formal Answers. OK, herewith. Remember, you asked.

First, it doesn't make any difference what kind of construction that follows. Its use depends on what follows it, not what precedes it. The X of Y construction is common enough, but note that the first X is often a quantifier, like

  • 20 gallons of gas, a pinch of sugar, lots of cumin

In these cases, the quantifier can't really be the antecedent of a relative clause (which is where that is used) -- the last noun is the antecedent which that refers to.

Second, the constructions given are not normal English sentences.

  • ??One of them that is red is running away from here
  • *There’s one of them that are unable to continue

The first one is very odd, since one of them that is red simply means one of the red ones, with no relative clause, and therefore no that. The second example, with plural are agreeing with singular that, is simply ungrammatical.

Third, you're overthinking it. Or perhaps your English teacher has emphasized number agreement. In any event, number agreement only happens with the verbs is vs are, was vs were, and has vs have. And most of the time native English speakers simply use the singular, or reduce the auxiliary verb to a schwa.

There are many circumstances where it just doesn't matter. For instance, the rule of there-insertion produces sentences like

  • There's some people here to see you.

from sentences like

  • Some people are here to see you

because there's is a contraction, and once a contraction has been made, no more rules are applied, so number agreement is ignored. The rule could also produce

  • There are some people here to see you.

but that's hard to contract to there're, since we can't really say two /r/'s in a row, and therefore there're is a rare conjunction in speech. Much the same can be said of person agreement -- except for the Z on 3SPres, it's limited to auxiliary verbs, too.

John Lawler
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  • As I see it: the construction is good: A: Now the men are resting. how many can make the next stage? – B: They are in two groups: those that can continue and those who can’t. There’s one of {them that are unable to continue} who will probably die and one of {them that are able to continue} but who probably won’t make the whole stage. – Greybeard Jun 12 '22 at 21:06
  • As I remarked in the deleted comments before, you wouldn't use them in that construction; that's what demonstratives are for. There's one of {those that are unable to continue} who'll probably die, and one of those that are able... – John Lawler Jun 12 '22 at 23:05
  • This answer somehow is seemed to be bothersome to me. But, thank you, sir, for the answer. The things about number agreement wasn't a topic here at the start. Someone just modified the question. Although, using x of y, where the x is singular and y is plural, is just for better demonstration purpose as readers who watch this question can clearly see which noun the relative clause follows in the examples.

    We aren't here talking lots of mistakes in this question here that I made. For those mistakes, I sincerely apologize.

     – Akari Jun 15 '22 at 18:46
  • The original question is simple: what noun phrase that 'that' refers to, in "noun of noun" subject, is first or second noun phrase? Or both are okay in certain situations. If one of its references is wrong, what kind of method should we use to refer to it? – Akari Jun 15 '22 at 18:59
  • I think that my question isn't clearly answered, as there's too many examples and explanation on number agreement that seem off topic here. The main topic instead is not well explained:( that makes me hard to figure out and understand your answer, sir. – Akari Jun 15 '22 at 19:06