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Lucas21c Posted 11 years ago
Grammar

Subject-complement agreement

Could you confirm whether both of (A) and (B) are okay in the following sentence? Thank you.

Its leaves look like [ (A) a needle / (B) needles ].
  

Top answer

needles

— Tamguatlay

  • needles
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9 Answers
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Then, how about "Lions are the king of beasts?" Should it also be "Lions are the kings of beasts?"
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lucas21cThen, how about "Lions are the king of beasts?" Should it also be "Lions are the kings of beasts?"
Its leaves look like needles. (OK)
Lions are the king of beasts. (OK)

Its leaves look like the needles. (not correct)
BUT Lions are the king of beasts. (correct)
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How about "Lions are the kings of beasts?" Do you mean "Lions are the kings of beasts. (OK)"? (Your 1st and 4th sentences are the same)
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1. Its leaves look like needles. (OK)
2. Lions are the king of beasts. (OK)
3. Lions are the king of beasts. (correct)

Lions are the kings of beasts. (see 3 above)
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Sorry that I can't understand what you said. It seems to me that you didn't still make your grammatical judgement on the sentence, "Lions are the kings of beasts." Could you tell me what "see 3 above" means, 'see #3' or 'see the above three sentences'? In any case, actually, I wouldn't draw any conclusion about the grammatical validity of "Lions are the kings of beasts" from you answ
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3. Lions are the king of beasts. (correct)

Lions are the kings of beasts. (see 3 above)
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The natural expression is "The lion is the king of beasts". "The lion", singular, represents the species as a whole.

In my opinion, neither "Lions are the king of beats" nor "Lions are the kings of bests" is natural. The former is not grammatical and the latter not idiomatic
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