Plural or singular verb

Question

Which is correct:A number of suggestions were given.orA number of suggestions was given.????

GPY · Accepted Answer

BillJ · Answer

A number of suggestions were/was given.

The short answer is that plural were is right.

As used in your example, number is a non-count quantificational noun. It is 'number-transparent' in the sense that the verb-form is determined not by the head of the noun phrase, the singular noun number, but by the noun that is complement to the preposition of – in this case, the plural noun suggestions.

As it happens, "number" selects only plural nouns as complement to of, so the verb-form will always be plural. But there are a few other number-transparent nouns like lot, plenty and rest that can select singular or plural complements and hence the verb may be singular or plural:

A lot of work was done ~ A lot of errors were found.

Plenty of money is available ~ Plenty of friends were invited.

The rest of the meat was bad ~ The rest of the runners were exhausted.

Note: the number has a different sense to a number. Unlike the latter, it is a singular non-transparent noun and hence the matrix NP is also singular: The number of protesters has not been revealed.

Halton · Answer

thank you!

"Were" sounded right but I confused myself by looking at "a number" as singular .

Plural or singular verb

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