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Tricky situation: "is" vs "are"

  Tags: Grammar | English
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Volte
Tetraglot
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 Message 17 of 29
17 March 2010 at 8:05am | IP Logged 
Woodpecker wrote:
Volte wrote:
Woodpecker wrote:
In English, we simply don't put plurals next to "is" like that, some other word being assumed or not. "Languages is," "cats is," "schools of thought is," etc. They all sound absurd.


If only it were so simple.

I certainly say "Mathematics is fun, and physics is fun too".


I mentioned collectives in one of my previous posts, but that's not really relevant to what I was trying to say. Mathematics, for all intents and purposes, behaves like a singular in English. I was specifically referring to the concept that because we're talking about [Studying] languages, that one would use a singular verb. Nobody would assume the studying if it wasn't actually there. Ever.


You're right.

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Impiegato
Triglot
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 Message 18 of 29
17 March 2010 at 5:50pm | IP Logged 
One remark:
Let us change the sentence in the following manner:

"My hobby is languages."

In this case, we don't hesitate about whether it should be "is" or "are". The sentence contains the same components, but it sounds completely wrong to put "are", because the verb refers to "hobby", not "languages". Therefore, "hobby" is the subject and "languages" the accusative object (it gives an answer to the question "what is my hobby?"). If, on the other hand, the sentence is inverted in this way, it is not as clear any more:

"Languages are/is my hobby."
"Studying/learning languages is my hobby."

We need to think about what is the direct/accusative object and the subject respectively. "Languages" is still the accusative object.
The problem is that it seems like we have to base the judgement of the inverted sentence on intuition, not on grammatical rules. Combining with a verb ending in -ing seems to cancel the problem, since "are" is not possible.   

What strikes me is this:
Why is the decision on is/are so evident when the sentence is not inverted (order: subject, verb, direct object), but not in the other case?

Edited by Impiegato on 17 March 2010 at 5:57pm
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global_gizzy
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 Message 19 of 29
17 March 2010 at 5:56pm | IP Logged 
IronFist wrote:
....You know, I bet this is the kind of thing they put on a test for people learning English and then the teachers make a big deal out of it when no one understands it. Like, "Circle one: Languages [is/are] my hobby." And I bet in 50% of cases the teachers can't even explain why one of those might be wrong.


Its sad but definitely likely. I felt a chill run down my spine when I read your post!
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Volte
Tetraglot
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Switzerland
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 Message 20 of 29
17 March 2010 at 7:02pm | IP Logged 
Impiegato wrote:
One remark:
Let us change the sentence in the following manner:

"My hobby is languages."

In this case, we don't hesitate about whether it should be "is" or "are". The sentence contains the same components, but it sounds completely wrong to put "are", because the verb refers to "hobby", not "languages". Therefore, "hobby" is the subject and "languages" the accusative object (it gives an answer to the question "what is my hobby?"). If, on the other hand, the sentence is inverted in this way, it is not as clear any more:

"Languages are/is my hobby."
"Studying/learning languages is my hobby."

We need to think about what is the direct/accusative object and the subject respectively. "Languages" is still the accusative object.
The problem is that it seems like we have to base the judgement of the inverted sentence on intuition, not on grammatical rules. Combining with a verb ending in -ing seems to cancel the problem, since "are" is not possible.   

What strikes me is this:
Why is the decision on is/are so evident when the sentence is not inverted (order: subject, verb, direct object), but not in the other case?


If I'm not mistaken, this whole analysis is entirely unfounded, as 'is' is being used as a copula, so there is no direct/accusative object - despite the valency, 'is' is not a transitive verb.

As you correctly noted, the right form of the copula depends on the subject, not the predicate (the part you were calling a direct/accusative object). By changing the subject, the correct form of the copula also changes.

Or, in plain English: the right form of 'is' to use depends on what comes before it, and can be different if you switch a statement around.

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arkady
Bilingual Diglot
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rightconditi
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 Message 21 of 29
17 March 2010 at 8:52pm | IP Logged 
My 2 cents, the phrase sounds fine.

Languages are my hobby.

However for most people it will sound a bit unusual, as languages do not immediately refer to action. To some it does and they will find the statement acceptable, but the majority consider languages objects of sorts. Objects cannot be hobbies, actions involving the objects can be.

Still, this is not worth nitpicking over.

There are still many Americans who can't even correctly match is/are to single/plural, so this is hardly an issue to worry over.
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Cainntear
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 Message 22 of 29
17 March 2010 at 8:59pm | IP Logged 
Oooh.. that was a head-twister wasn't it?

OK, Volte, I wasn't trying to be prescriptive or proscriptive and yes, I put my view too strongly and too definitively. My view has always been to teach the most commonly encountered form and let variations introduce themselves, as fully inclusive descriptive teaching is just confusing. (= "Everything is right, except you would normally want to say this... unless... or...")

My reasoning is that the first form you familiarise yourself with sticks best, and so it should be the most common and complete, and that's what I went for -- but as I said I stated it too strongly.

Anyway, the most important thing if we want to get the descriptively most common form is to get the sentence order the normal way round, because there will never be agreements (between people, not between words!) on the inverted form (cf "It's me" & "it is I").
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Impiegato
Triglot
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 Message 23 of 29
18 March 2010 at 12:21pm | IP Logged 
Volte wrote:
Impiegato wrote:
One remark:
Let us change the sentence in the following manner:

"My hobby is languages."

In this case, we don't hesitate about whether it should be "is" or "are". The sentence contains the same components, but it sounds completely wrong to put "are", because the verb refers to "hobby", not "languages". Therefore, "hobby" is the subject and "languages" the accusative object (it gives an answer to the question "what is my hobby?"). If, on the other hand, the sentence is inverted in this way, it is not as clear any more:

"Languages are/is my hobby."
"Studying/learning languages is my hobby."

We need to think about what is the direct/accusative object and the subject respectively. "Languages" is still the accusative object.
The problem is that it seems like we have to base the judgement of the inverted sentence on intuition, not on grammatical rules. Combining with a verb ending in -ing seems to cancel the problem, since "are" is not possible.   

What strikes me is this:
Why is the decision on is/are so evident when the sentence is not inverted (order: subject, verb, direct object), but not in the other case?


If I'm not mistaken, this whole analysis is entirely unfounded, as 'is' is being used as a copula, so there is no direct/accusative object - despite the valency, 'is' is not a transitive verb.

As you correctly noted, the right form of the copula depends on the subject, not the predicate (the part you were calling a direct/accusative object). By changing the subject, the correct form of the copula also changes.

Or, in plain English: the right form of 'is' to use depends on what comes before it, and can be different if you switch a statement around.


You are right about the predicative. After verbs like "be", "become" etc a predicative will follow the verb. However, the quintessence is still correct as you pointed out. I think the main issue is that people get easily confused when we change the word order in the sentence and questions like "is the word at the beginning of the phrase still the subject or not?" will arise. An important question is this:

Does this problem occur only because there is a predicative in this case or can we find a similar example with an accusative object?

Edited by Impiegato on 18 March 2010 at 12:21pm
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Volte
Tetraglot
Senior Member
Switzerland
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Speaks: English*, Esperanto, German, Italian
Studies: French, Finnish, Mandarin, Japanese

 
 Message 24 of 29
20 March 2010 at 5:03am | IP Logged 
Impiegato wrote:
Volte wrote:
Impiegato wrote:
One remark:
Let us change the sentence in the following manner:

"My hobby is languages."

In this case, we don't hesitate about whether it should be "is" or "are". The sentence contains the same components, but it sounds completely wrong to put "are", because the verb refers to "hobby", not "languages". Therefore, "hobby" is the subject and "languages" the accusative object (it gives an answer to the question "what is my hobby?"). If, on the other hand, the sentence is inverted in this way, it is not as clear any more:

"Languages are/is my hobby."
"Studying/learning languages is my hobby."

We need to think about what is the direct/accusative object and the subject respectively. "Languages" is still the accusative object.
The problem is that it seems like we have to base the judgement of the inverted sentence on intuition, not on grammatical rules. Combining with a verb ending in -ing seems to cancel the problem, since "are" is not possible.   

What strikes me is this:
Why is the decision on is/are so evident when the sentence is not inverted (order: subject, verb, direct object), but not in the other case?


If I'm not mistaken, this whole analysis is entirely unfounded, as 'is' is being used as a copula, so there is no direct/accusative object - despite the valency, 'is' is not a transitive verb.

As you correctly noted, the right form of the copula depends on the subject, not the predicate (the part you were calling a direct/accusative object). By changing the subject, the correct form of the copula also changes.

Or, in plain English: the right form of 'is' to use depends on what comes before it, and can be different if you switch a statement around.


You are right about the predicative. After verbs like "be", "become" etc a predicative will follow the verb.


Unless the language is poetic: "red is a rose".

Impiegato wrote:

However, the quintessence is still correct as you pointed out. I think the main issue is that people get easily confused when we change the word order in the sentence and questions like "is the word at the beginning of the phrase still the subject or not?" will arise. An important question is this:

Does this problem occur only because there is a predicative in this case or can we find a similar example with an accusative object?


I'm not coming up with English examples; word order is stricter with transitive verbs, and swapping it around seems to require a passive in every phrase I can think of.



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