Verb-noun reference; help with a phrase

Question

Hello everyone! I'm new here.I've written such a phrase:"(...) namely the accomplishment of communicative acts which are facilitated by our pragmatic competence."I would like to ask you if the plural form of the verb to be is natural here as it refers to the communicative acts and not to the accomplishment of them. Would a native speaker expect a verb that refers to the first of the series of nouns rather than to the second one? And, by the way, does the accomplishment of an act sound natural and meaningful English?

Avangi · Accepted Answer

Hi sig, thanks for joining us. Welcome to English Forums !

I don't really think we're expecting either, until we've discovered that the "which" clause will be "defining." At that point, we take the closer noun as the antecedent.

If you wanted the relative clause to modify "accomplishment," you'd need to preceed it with a comma, making it "non-defining," or something like that. (Which accomplishment, or which acts)

On the other hand, if your intention is that the clause modify "acts" and be non-defining, you might have a problem. The comma would be required, and the pause would make it ambiguous as to the antecedent of "which." In that case, only the plural verb determines the antecedent. If "acts" were singular, the sentence would be ambiguous, absent clarification by prior context.

Best regards, - A.

Edit. Hmmm, this is a bit confusing. I should scrap it and start over. (Someone else will probably do it for me!)

The problem is, without more context, I don't really know whether or not you intend the "which" clause to be non-defining, which would require a comma, and, to some extent, a pause.

To my ear, the lack of a pause helps to choose the closer noun as the antecedent, and this is immediately reinforced by the plural verb. So the sentence works fine.

If it turns out we do need a comma, then only the plural verb determines the antecedent - which is better than nothing.

Sigurekpl · Answer

OK, so let's compare the two possible sentences/phrases:

"(...) namely the accomplishment of communicative acts which are facilitated by our pragmatic competence."
"(...) namely the accomplishment of communicative acts which is facilitated by our pragmatic competence."

Truly speaking, as far as the meaning of the passage is concerned, the two phrases do not differ much: if I say that the accomplishment of the acts is facilitated, I will mean the same as if I said that the communicative acts are facilitated, that is made easier thanks to some pragmatic competence. Of course the sentences will differ in terms of their structure, the verb is/are referring to a different noun cluster of the phrase, but what I'm saying is that it seems to me, as a non-native speaker of English, that the two variants sound correct and do not differ much in their eventual meaning. Is this really so?

Avangi · Answer

There's still a problem re defining and non-defining "which" clauses. If you use the singular verb, then you must follow "acts" by a comma, to make the clause non-defining. Otherwise it will mean, "only the accomplishment which is facilitated by our pragmatic competence."

If you use the plural verb without the comma, then it means the accomplishment of only those acts which are facilitated by our pragmatic competence. This is the meaning of your original version! The comma changes the meaning.

In the beginning, I didn't know if you meant that or not. Now I believe you don't. So we must use the comma.

As I said before, without the comma, my ear prefers the closer noun as the antecedent of "which." So we don't have that crutch anymore. Either noun may be the antecedent. Only the singular or plural verb will determine it.

Since, as you say, the meaning is essentially the same, the plural is probably the better choice, since it's easier on the ear.

I hope you get my point about the comma.

Sigurekpl · Answer

Thank you very much for all your explanations, Avangi!

Anonymous · Answer

hi thank u   for what u wrote

Verb-noun reference; help with a phrase

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