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Taka Posted 12 years ago
Grammar

Opportunity

The number of people is increasing.

Without "the number", the sentence wouldn't make sense.

Then, what about this? Does it make sense?

The opportunity to use it is increasing.
  

Top answer

Both make sense.

— Hjoi

  • Both make sense.
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20 Answers
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Do you mean "People increase" also works? Are you sure?
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"The number of people is increasing." is correct.

"The opportunity to use it is increasing." is okay, provided the context fits.

"People increase." is theoretically grammatical, but a context to which this fits would be hard to come up with.
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TakaThe number of people is increasing.
No, this is not a syntactically complete sentence.
TakaThe opportunity to use it is increasing.
Neither is this one.
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grammarfreakNo, this is not a syntactically complete sentence.
Neither is this one.
They are both complete sentences.
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Aspara Gus grammarfreakNo, this is not a syntactically complete sentence.Neither is this one.They are both complete sentences.
They are correct; grammatically speaking. Syntactically, it sounds incomplete to me. Perhaps adding an adverbial phrase:
The number of people (being laid off ) is increasing.
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grammarfreakSyntactically, it sounds incomplete to me.
But they are complete: both have a subject and a predicate and aren’t missing any grammatically obligatory elements.
grammarfreakPerhaps adding an adverbial phrase:
The number of people (being laid off ) is increasing.
Adding a modifier, an optional dependent
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Aspara GusAdding a modifier, an optional dependent element, does not make a sentence ‘syntactically’ more complete. It seems to me that your problem with the sentences has to do with the meaning, not the grammar.By the way, in traditional grammar the phrase you added would be called adjectival, not adverbial, since it’s modifying
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grammarfreakWhen I said "syntactically", I was referring to the meaning relative to the words and constructions of the sentence. I don't believe I had made references about its grammatical correctness. As far as having a subject and a verb is concerned, it met the requirement of being a grammatically correct sentence.
Have you looked up 'syntactically' in a di
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grammarfreakParticipial clauses often express condition, reason, cause, result ortime in a similar way to full adverbial clauses, only more economically
They do indeed, but AG was talking about the phrase you added, not about participial clauses such as those mentioned on the BBC site.
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