Much + have/has?

Question

(1) The sentence in the textbook is as follows:

"Much of the depletion and consumption of resources have been done to meet the demands of the affluent."

Shouldn't the main verb be "has been done" instead?
Here's my reasoning:
Much is an uncountable noun acting as the subject of the sentence. Therefore, it should take the 3rd-person singular form of the verb, which would be 'has'.

(2) And a follow-up question: if the sentence were as follows: *(side question: can I put two colons in one sentence?)

"Much of the depletion and much of the consumption of resources have been done to meet the demands of the affluent."

it would now be correct to use 'have', right? This would be because there are now a compound subject consisting of 'much' and 'much'.

I know that textbook authors can make mistakes but I'm trying to give them the benefit of the doubt. Now I will try to explain why sentence (1) could be correct.
The true subject is depletion and consumption even though they are part of a prepositional phrase. The reasoning (and I'm just trying to make this up to make sense of it) is that 'much' by itself is not the main topic at hand, but rather the two items, depletion and consumption, are the focus; 'much' is more like an 'adverbial dummy subject'.

Mister Micawber · Accepted Answer

1. Yes, 'has'.
2. One colon only: recast if necessary. Still 'has' because both depletion and consumption are uncountable: all of the wine and all of the beer has been drunk.

Jerek Jedlicka · Answer

Mister Micawber all of the wine and all of the beer has been drunk.

For some reason my computer didn't log me in...the original post was mine and I have a question about your response.

In your example, which I quoted, why wouldn't it be "have" since there is a compound subject? Don't compound subjects always take the plural form of the verb?\

Thank you in advance^^

Mister Micawber · Answer

Not if they're all uncountable—at least that's what sounds natural to me.

Jerek Jedlicka · Answer

Then, how about "Air and water are essential to life"?

This sounds natural to me.^^ (I am a native English speaker)

Mister Micawber · Answer

Good point.  How about 'All of the water and air is gone'?

Jerek Jedlicka · Answer

Then the subject is a singular subject, "all", therefore it should be 'is'.

I think I'm answering my own question from the original post...the authors were incorrect to put "have".^^

BillJ · Answer

AnonymousThe true subject is depletion and consumption even though they are part of a prepositional phrase. The reasoning (and I'm just trying to make this up to make sense of it) is that 'much' by itself is not the main topic at hand, but rather the two items, depletion and consumption, are the focus; 'much' is more like an 'adverbial dummy subject'.

It is not possible for complements of preps to be subjects.

The subject of the sentence is the noun phrase "Much of the depletion and consumption of resources", in which the noun "much" is the head word. It governs the verb for number purposes; since it's a non-count noun, it follows that the verb must be singular "has". You can also tell by removing the coordinated PP complements "of the depletion" and "of the consumption of resources" to yield "Much has been done...", but clearly not *"Much have been done...".

So the authors who used "have" got it wrong!

Incidentally, the topic (not the subject) of the sentence is 'the depletion and consumption of resources'.

BillJ

Mister Micawber · Answer

Thanks, Bill, for finding the forest.  I was surrounded by trees.

Much + have/has?

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