Grammar
I read the following sentences in a book:
But it is not the clearly visible signs of violence that attract and repel us.
It is the indirect signals that hold a morbid fascination for outsiders.
I don't understand why "signs" and "signals" are used in the plural but the verb is in the singular.
Could someone explain this to me?
Thank you in advance.
Veit
Top answer
file tile 16 I don't understand why "signs" and "signals" are used in the plural but the verb is in the singular. There are two verbs in each sentence, and they both agree with their subjects—"it is", "signs attract", and "signals hold". That "it" is called various things, expletive "it", existential "it", dummy "it".
- file tile 16 I don't understand why "signs" and "signals" are used in the plural but the verb is in the singular.
- There are two verbs in each sentence, and they both agree with their subjects—"it is", "signs attract", and "signals hold".
- That "it" is called various things, expletive "it", existential "it", dummy "it".
- It is a meaningless syntactical placeholder and does not really participate in the grammar.
- It does not have to agree in number with anything.
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file tile 16I don't understand why "signs" and "signals" are used in the plural but the verb is in the singular.
There are two verbs in each sentence, and they both agree with their subjects—"it is", "signs attract", and "signals hold". That "it" is called various things, expletive "it", existential "it", dummy "it". It is a meaningless syntactical placehol
0file tile 16Could someone explain this to me?
The subject of the sentence, "it", is singular. The verb agrees with "it".
This is a cleft sentence, which places emphasis on certain content.
https://www.thoughtco.com/what-is-cleft-sentenc
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