has or have

Question

Should you say :"English is becoming the lingua franca of the 490 million inhabitants of the 27 countries of the European Union which has (or have) 23 official languages. "To me "has" sounds more logical but could you also say "have"?According to you "which" refers to the EU or the 27 countries?Thank you for your help.Marika

Mister Micawber · Accepted Answer

English is becoming the lingua franca of the 490 million inhabitants of the 27 countries of the European Union, which has 23 official languages.

Elanguest · Answer

Technically, the verb refers to the last noun stated, which in this sentence is European Union, so the conjugation should be singular: has.

Mister Micawber · Answer

ElanguestTechnically, the verb refers to the last noun stated,

I can't see that that is necessarily so:

They are the only offspring of an r-negative female which have grown to adulthood.

Blue Jay · Answer

I would say that the 23 languages referred to are "official languages of the European Union", and the total number of official languages recognized within the member countries may well be different. For example, Welsh is not one of the EU official languages, but is an official language in Wales. That would mean that in this case you would have to use has.

Tom · Answer

"They are the only offspring of an r-negative female which have grown to adulthood."

However correct, this is still a very awquard construction and i doubt that anyone trying to accurately convey scientific information would feel comfortable making a statement which provides so much room for ambiguity and potential misunderstanding. I think they would restructure that statement if they wanted to make sure that their meaning was accurately conveyed.

In response to OP, the answer, in this case, is that the verb definitely does refer to the European Union, and is therefore has.

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