# The boy sitting by the window is one of the students who <are, is> from the countryside in our school.



## Kirimaru

Hi,
1.The boy sitting by the window is one of the students who *are *
from the countryside in our school.
2.The boy sitting by the window is the only one of the students who *is*
from the countryside in our school.

3.He is one of the brightest students who *has *graduated from my university.
 Please take a look at the above sentences to check whether I use the correct form of "be" and "have".
Thanks


----------



## panjandrum

In each case you want a plural verb.
The verb should agree with its subject.
... the _*students *_who _*are *_from the countryside ...
... the brightest _*students *_who _*have *_graduated ...


----------



## Sr Salchicha

I agree that the verb should agree with the subject... but surely the subject in question in sentence 2 is the boy, hence *is* is correct.  And in sentence 3 "He" is the subject and therefore *has* is correct.


----------



## Eigenfunction

1.The boy sitting by the window is one of the students who are
from the countryside in our school.

2.The boy sitting by the window is the only one of the students who is from the countryside in our school.

3.He is one of the brightest students who have graduated from my university.
 
In sentences 3, the subject of the first verbs is he, but the second verb has a plural subject (students).


----------



## panjandrum

Sr Salchicha said:


> I agree that the verb should agree with the subject... but surely the subject in question in sentence 2 is the boy, hence *is* is correct.  And in sentence 3 "He" is the subject and therefore *has* is correct.


As Eigen explained (and I suggested by my use of bold, but didn't make clear enough) the subject of *are *in sentences (1) and (2), and *have *in sentence (3), is *students*.

Sorry for any confusion caused.


----------



## iskndarbey

In sentence 2 the verb should be 'is' -- the subject is not 'students' but 'the only one of the students'.


----------



## zspan

Eigenfunction said:


> 1.The boy sitting by the window is one of the students who are
> from the countryside in our school.
> 
> 2.The boy sitting by the window is the only one of the students who are
> from the countryside in our school.
> 
> 3.He is one of the brightest students who have graduated from my university.
> 
> In sentences 2 and 3, the subject of the first verbs are the boy and he, but the second verb in each case has a plural subject.



I disagree altogether.

In sentences 1 and 2, the word "who" after the word students is referring to "HE", not to the students. Therefore the proper verb is "IS"

In sentence 3, the subject is "HE" and "one of the brightest students" modifies" him. So the verb should remain "HAS" and not "HAVE". You would say "He has graduated" regardless of how he is modified.


----------



## Eigenfunction

I have already corrected the 2nd sentence, but I stand by what I have put for the 1st  and 3rd sentences.

The 1st sentence, the boy is one of them, and they are the students who are from the countryside

the 3rd sentence, he is one of them, and they are the students who have graduated from my university.


----------



## zspan

Eigen - 

Yes, the boy is one of them but but boy remains the subject of these sentences. 

For example in in sentence 3. "One of the brightest students" is only a modifier of the single subject "he", so it should be "he has".


----------



## panjandrum

Sentence (2) is complex and perhaps ambiguous.
Looking in more detail:
2.The boy sitting by the window is the only one of ...
... the students who *are *from the countryside 
... in our school.
If that is the way you understand the sentence, then it needs *are*, not *is*.
The antecedent for _who _is _the students_.

Try again and omit the end of the sentence:
2.The boy sitting by the window is the only one of ...
... the students ...
... who *is *from the countryside.
That's perfectly OK.
The antecedent for _who _is _the boy_.

But that is not what the sentence said.  Now reinstate the ending:
2.The boy sitting by the window is the only one of ...
... the students ...
... who *is *from the countryside in our school.
That only makes sense if the phrase "the countryside in our school" makes sense as a location for the boy to come from.  That doesn't make sense to me.


----------



## Cagey

I agree with those who say that sentence number 2 should have a singular verb.

2.The boy sitting by the window is_ the only one_ [of the students] who is from the countryside in our school.​
While the other two should be plural.

1.The boy sitting by the window is one [of the students who _are_ from the countryside in our school].

3.He is one [of the brightest students who _have_ graduated from my university].​


----------



## zspan

Cagey said:


> I agree with those who say that sentence number 2 should have a singular verb.2.The boy sitting by the window is_ the only one_ [of the students] who is from the countryside in our school.​While the other two should be plural.1.The boy sitting by the window is one [of the students who _are_ from the countryside in our school].
> 
> 3.He is one [of the brightest students who _have_ graduated from my university].​


I disagree because HE remains the subject or the sentence. "One of the brightest students" is a modifier of "HE". The pronoun WHO therefore continues to refer to the the student "HE", and not to the "students" within the modifier "one of the brightest students".


----------



## Cagey

zspan said:


> I disagree because HE remains the subject or the sentence. "One of the brightest students" is a modifier of "HE".



I have wavered.  

However, at the moment I think he is one from the group of the brightest students who have graduated from the school.  That is, I think "who ...." describes the students, not him.

EDIT: My apologies for this substantive change to this post, the subject of the comment below.  Previously, I had agreed with the above post.


----------



## Eigenfunction

zspan said:


> I disagree because HE remains the subject or the sentence. "One of the brightest students" is a modifier of "HE".



That would imply that he is one of the brightest of all students, whereas, although slightly ambiguous, the sentence would appear to be saying he is one of the brightest of all the students who have graduated from my university. We can illustrate this by reorganising the sentence:
_He, who has graduated from my university, is one of the brightest students.
_ 
This is an equivalent sentence if we use has instead of have.


----------



## panjandrum

<<Moderator note that has nothing to do with this particular topic.
Please do not edit posts to make material changes after others have already commented.  It makes the flow of the discussion in the thread appear illogical.
If you must, to avoid misleading subsequent readers, please make it very clear what you have changed. >>


----------



## zspan

Eigenfunction said:


> That would imply that he is one of the brightest of all students, whereas, although slightly ambiguous, the sentence would appear to be saying he is one of the brightest of all the students who have graduated from my university. We can illustrate this by reorganising the sentence:
> _He, who has graduated from my university, is one of the brightest students.
> _
> This is an equivalent sentence if we use has instead of have.



Yes, I read the sentence to mean that he is one of the brightest students who has graduated from this university.

The defining issue here is who does the pronoun "who" refer to. I maintain it refers to "he" and not the "students".


----------



## Eigenfunction

Apologies for any confusion caused by my edit. I've now come to the conclusion that in most of these sentences, neither the plural nor the singular is grammatically incorrect, but they change the meaning of the sentences by dictating which of the nouns is actually the subject.

In sentence two, if the category of which he is one of the brightest is [students who have graduated from my university], then he is no longer the subject in the second clause.

If the category is [students], then he remains the subject and the sentence tells us directly that he has graduated, rather than implying it by including him in a category of graduated students.


----------



## zspan

Eigenfunction said:


> Apologies for any confusion caused by my edit. I've now come to the conclusion that in most of these sentences, neither the plural nor the singular is grammatically incorrect, but they change the meaning of the sentences by dictating which of the nouns is actually the subject.



I disagree. I maintain that in all three sentences the boy is the continuous subject, and therefore the choice of verb is clear.


----------



## Cagey

zspan said:


> I disagree. I maintain that in all three sentences the boy is the continuous subject, and therefore the choice of verb is clear.


A relative clause has its own subject and verb.   A relative pronoun, like 'who', _ does not necessarily_ refer to the subject of main clause.  It often refers to the noun that immediately preceeds it, but it does not always do this.

In the above discussion, people are reading the sentences differently because we don't agree about the referent/ antecedent of 'who' in each of the sentences.


----------



## panjandrum

Thank you cagey.
I was trying to point out that if you try to read the sentence as if the boy is the antecedent of _who_, you must also place the countryside inside the school and change what is meant by _students_.

Original sentence:
The boy sitting by the window is the only one of the students who *are *from the countryside in our school.
_Students _is the antecedent of _who_.
There are many students from the countryside.
Only one of these students is in our school.

If you want the antecedent of _who _to be the boy, the meaning of _students_ changes to refer to all the students in the school.
Here again is the sentence with is:
The boy sitting by the window is the only one of the students who *is *from the countryside in our school.

The structure of the sentence is clumsy and unnatural.  To convey this meaning, the sentence should be changed:
The boy sitting by the window is the only one of the students in our school who *is *from the countryside.

- and it would be so much better as:
The boy sitting by the window is the only student in our school who *is *from the countryside.


----------



## gaer

My view:

1. The boy sitting by the window is one of the students who is/are from the countryside in our school.

I would pick "is". I would assume that the boy is one of the students. However, I would have no objection to "are", and *I have seen persuasive arguments for both answers in previous, thoughtful threads in this forum*.

3. He is one of the brightest students who has/have graduated from my university.

Same answer: I would pick the singular verb that agrees with "he", but I would not argue with "have". Again *I have seen persuasive arguments for both answers in previous, thoughtful threads in this forum*.

2. The boy sitting by the window is the _*only one*_ of the students who _*is*_ from the countryside in our school.

This is the only sentence of the three that presents no problems. Of the students (all of them), the boy is the only one who is from the countryside.

As Panjy pointed out, two of these sentences are potentially ambiguous. To stubbornly dictate that there is one and only one correct answer appears to me to be unreasonable and rigid.

More important, this whole subject probably belongs on the list of "subjects that appear most often and that are mostly hotly debated, without a resolution".

Gaer


----------



## Cagey

Response to Post #20.

Yes, Panjandrum, I agree with your excellent analysis of how the sentence works and your conclusion.  

Here is the reason I think that syntax makes "is" the necessary choice for the original version of #2, poorly written though it is:

The sentence has the basic structure;
_The boy is the only one who does this or that._ 

In this structure, the relative clause "who ...." describes "one" which in turn refers to the boy.​
If, however, if we say that "who ....."  describes the _students_, we are left with an unfinished thought:
The boy is the only one ....​
This was just a description of the grammar, as I see it.  I agree that the sentence is confusing (invites misreading) and that your version is far better.

(Gaer's post intervened.)


----------



## panjandrum

Let's have a little look at the third sentence, just for fun.

First, with _who _referring to _He_.
*He is one of the brightest students who has graduated from my university.*

What does _brightest students_ mean in this sentence?
Brightest among what community of students?
All the students in the world?
That's fine, we quite often talk about _one of the X-est people _without defining the population. Generally, this means something like _one of the X-est people you could possibly find anywhere_.  Bill is one of the nicest people.
So let's fit that into the sentence:
_He is one of the brightest students in the world who has graduated from my university._
To my mind that is a bizarre sentence.  Others may have different views.  But, again to my mind, if you want _who _to refer to _He _and be followed by _has_, then you must be content with that sentence structure.

Try the alternative, with _who _referring to _students _and followed by _have_.
_*He is one of the brightest students who have graduated from my university.*
_Now we have a defined population of students - those who have graduated from my university.  Among that set of students there is a subset that we call "the brightest".  
He is one of that subset.
To my mind that is a good sentence.

Perhaps it's all in the mind - but now you can perhaps see what was going on in mine 
Goodnight.

Edit:  Written before Cagey's post just above _~~another grin~~_.


----------



## Cagey

panjandrum said:


> Try the alternative, with _who _referring to _students _and followed by _have_.
> _*He is one of the brightest students who have graduated from my university.*
> _Now we have a defined population of students - those who have graduated from my university.  Among that set of students there is a subset that we call "the brightest".
> He is one of that subset.
> To my mind that is a good sentence.
> 
> Perhaps it's all in the mind - but now you can perhaps see what was going on in mine
> Goodnight.
> 
> Edit:  Written before Cagey's post just above _~~another grin~~_.



Another excellent exposition, and I agree.


----------



## gaer

panjandrum said:


> Let's have a little look at the third sentence, just for fun.
> Try the alternative, with _who _referring to _students _and followed by _have_.
> _*He is one of the brightest students who have graduated from my university.*
> _Now we have a defined population of students - those who have graduated from my university. Among that set of students there is a subset that we call "the brightest".
> He is one of that subset.
> To my mind that is a good sentence.


I would instantly understand what you were saying, and I would not be the least bit jarred by the grammar.

I have one personal additional thought: I think that whenever we run into such problems, in writing, it is wise to rewrite—if doing so does not cause us to rewrite in a way that makes our original thoughts seem more awkward. In this case, I would rewrite the sentence:

*Of all the students who have graduated from my university, he is the brightest.*


----------



## zspan

Excellent analyses! I am obviously with Gaer on the preferece for "is" in all cases... and I will admit to being unreasonable and rigid .


----------



## gaer

zspan said:


> Excellent analyses! I am obviously with Gaer on the preferece for "is" in all cases... and I will admit to being unreasonable and rigid .


My "preferences" are based more on prescriptive rules rather than on feel, and I always suggest what I think is the safest path for students who are required to pass tests.

I am most definitely _not_ at all comfortable with the ideas of most prescriptivists.

I think Panjy has continued to make subtle points that clearly indicate why all the rules in the world don't always solve ambiguity, and I most certainly believe that there is not always on correct answer when the question is complicated.


----------



## panjandrum

The answer to this question, of course, is that the sentences are so badly formed in the first place that the only way to arrive at "good English" is to rewrite them.

They read as if they were written to probe the mechanics of grammar, not to communicate.


----------



## GreenWhiteBlue

Whether or not the boy is the subject of the _sentence_ is irrelevant. What is important is the identity of the subject of the _dependent_ _clause. _It is very common in English to have the subject of the dependent clause be different from the subject of the main clause (that is, the subject of the entire sentence.) For example, look at the sentence "John is the father of the little girls who are playing in the garden". The subject of the whole sentence is _John_, but the subject of the dependent clause is _the little girls_.

In sentence 1, we are assuming that a number of students are from the countryside, and the boy sitting by the window is one of them. Imagine a dialogue:
_Jack: That boy by the window is one of *them*._
_Jill: I'm sorry, I wasn't paying attention; who is the "them" you mean?_
_Jack: I mean *the students* *who are from the countryside*. That boy by the window is one of the students who *are* from the countryside._

In sentence 2, however, there are not a number of students from the countryside: there is only one. Again, think of a dialogue:
_Jill: That boy is the only one._
_Jack: That boy is the only one who did what?_
_Jill: That boy is the only one who is from the countryside._
_Jack: You mean no one else lives in the countryside except for one boy?_
_Jill: No, I was speaking of the students in the school, and not the general population. That boy is the only one (of the students in the school) who is from the countryside. _

In sentence 3, we are once more assuming that a large number of students (and not "only one") did something: in this case, graduated from my university.
Here is our dialogue:
_Jack: Many students have graduated from your university._
_Jill: Yes, but that boy is particularly bright. I know all *the brightest students who have graduated* from my university, and I would place him among them. _
_Jack: Just for the heck of it, could you reverse the order of the ideas in that sentence?_
_Jill: Certainly, my dear: He is one of the brightest students who *hav*e graduated from my university._


----------



## Sr Salchicha

Hola Panja,

I'll think you'll find that the original sentence proposed by Kirimaru, who, I am sure, is thoroughly confused, was: The boy sitting by the window is the only one of the students who *is* from the countryside in our school. 
If we replace the subect (the boy sitting by the window) with "He".... "*He *is *the* only one of the students who is from the countryside in our school" makes perfect sense to me and is hardly ambiguous nor clumsy or unnatural...
whereas "*He* is the only one of the students who are from the countryside in our school" makes no sense


----------



## Kirimaru

Thank you all for your ideas. I have read them all carefully.

GreenWhiteBlue's post #20 is exactly what I thought when writing these three sentences. Thanks again ,GreenWhiteBlue.

I am just a learner of English and desperately in my neighborhood ,I have  little chance to talk to native speakers to learn their way of making sentences naturally.So,it is highly likely that I will make mistakes with using words unnaturally when speaking.

I am so sorry for my above ambiguous and poorly written sentences.


----------



## zspan

GreenWhiteBlue said:


> In sentence 3, we are once more assuming that a large number of students (and not "only one") did something: in this case, graduated from my university.
> Here is our dialogue:
> _Jack: Many students have graduated from your university._
> _Jill: Yes, but that boy is particularly bright. I know all *the brightest students who have graduated* from my university, and I would place him among them. _
> _Jack: Just for the heck of it, could you reverse the order of the ideas in that sentence?_
> _Jill: Certainly, my dear: He is one of the brightest students who *hav*e graduated from my university._


*
He is one of the brightest students who has/have graduated from my university

*I am still not on board with GreatWhite. This sentence can be reduced to:
"He is one who has graduated from my university", or "He has graduated from my university". 

Why does the addition of the prepositional phrase "of the brightest students" require we convert the verb to "have"? 

Yes, many people have graduated but this one student, who is one of the brightest students there is, has now graduated.

I do not see how there is a relative clause modifying the students. Please explain.


----------



## Sr Salchicha

Hi Kirimaru,

"I am so sorry for my above ambiguous and poorly written sentences."

You shouldn't be sorry at all.... some of us think your sentences are fine.  I appluade you for learning another language!


----------



## Cagey

> I do not see how there is a relative clause modifying the students. Please explain.



Relative clauses that act as adjectives usually* follow the nouns they describe.  

A relative pronoun (_who_ in this case) takes its number from the noun or pronoun it refers to. 

The most natural way to understand "_who [have] graduated from my university_" is as referring to and describing students, the noun it immediately follows. 



> He is one of the brightest students who have graduated from my university



"_one of the brightest students_" describes the subject of the sentence 'he'. 

"_who [have] graduated from the school_" describes the students (of whom he is one).

* For reasons explained in Post 22, among others, this is not true of sentence #2. (Note to Kirimaru: your sentence #2 is _grammatically correct_. It is not wrong.)


----------



## zspan

Cagey said:


> Relative clauses that act as adjectives usually* follow the nouns they describe.
> 
> A relative pronoun (_who_ in this case) takes its number from the noun or pronoun it refers to.
> 
> The most natural way to understand "_who [have] graduated from my university_" is as referring to and describing students, the noun it immediately follows.
> 
> 
> 
> "_one of the brightest students_" describes the subject of the sentence 'he'.
> 
> "_who [have] graduated from the school_" describes the students (of whom he is one).
> 
> * For reasons explained in Post 22, among others, this is not true of sentence #2. (Note to Kimaru: your sentence #2 is _grammically correct_. It is not wrong.)



*He is one of the brightest students who has/have graduated from my university*
Couldn't I just as easily argue that the clause "who has graduated from the school" describes the boy? He has graduated? I do not agree it is "most natural" to assume the clause describes the students. I see how it _could_ do that but I do not agree there is a clearly correct answer here.


----------



## gaer

Kirimaru said:


> I am so sorry for my above ambiguous and poorly written sentences.


Your sentences are NOT ambiguous and poorly written unless over-analyzed, grammatically, to the point that common sense is thrown out the window.

I suggested rewriting at least one sentence only to avoid the kind of hair-splitting that has gone on here. 

Gaer


----------



## Forero

Kirimaru said:


> 1.The boy sitting by the window is one of the students who *are *from the countryside in our school.


The boy sitting by the window is one of the students in our school from the countryside. [one country boy in our school]


> 2.The boy sitting by the window is the only one of the students who *is *from the countryside in our school.


The boy sitting by the window is the only one of the students in our school who is from the countryside. [the only country boy there]


> 3.He is one of the brightest students who *has *graduated from my university.


Of the brightest students, he is one who has graduated from my university. [Whoever "the brightest students" are, most of them do not graduate from my university.]


----------



## Kirimaru

Thanks all of you.
I will remember this ^^


----------



## panjandrum

Perhaps the most important thing to remember from this is that there can be different interpretations of what is being said, which lead to different views on what is grammatically correct in the sentence.
Some sentence structures are more susceptible to this variation than others.  If you were to look over the longest threads in this forum you would probably find more of them


----------



## BookmeDanno

This discussion has been going on for many years, and is one I have been researching lately. Unfortunately, there is apparently no place on these forums for a discussion of the controversy surrounding the two alternative viewpoints of different language authorities, but they are both pretty well established, and they disagree on this number agreement issue in examples exhibiting, "one of those who." Consult various usage guides and you will see the issue discussed in some of them. But most simply subscribe to the plural version as correct. The addition of "only" as in one of the sentences here, changes the playing field entirely, and with it the answers concerning what is "correct" grammatically. 

But, believe it or not, there are schools of thought built up around either choice, and both are adamant in their selections of what is "correct."


----------



## panjandrum

Hello Bookme - and welcome 
We came to the conclusion two years ago that there is no single convincing answer to this question.  
It's like many others that get trolled around language forums.  Fun for a while, but life's too short to pursue it for long. Good luck with your research


----------



## Einstein

I've just seen a sentence in another thread and feel like having my say, especially because I've noticed that exactly the same "mistake" is made in Italian:

_Don't criticize him, he's one of those who *has/have* done most to help._

The meaning is that there is a group of people - those who *have* done most to help - and he is one of them.
Now, why does anyone want to use the singular verb *has*? Simply because we're talking about one person and *has* is used instinctively, whatever the structure of the sentence. However, it doesn't stand up to analysis. Some will say that we shouldn't analyze sentences; I can't argue with that.

But for my co-analysts I'd say the following:
It's possible to think up a situation where "those" refers to a previously defined group; he is one of that group and he is also the person who has done most to help. In this case the sentence with *has* would express the right meaning and no one could say that it was wrong.
But the big question is: _would anyone actually say/write such a sentence to describe such a situation_? My answer: it's *highly unlikely!*

It should be recognized that the above sentence,* with its normal, natural meaning,* needs a plural verb in order to be grammatically correct.


----------

