# Turkey is one of the countries in the world which <has/have> a lot of tourists [antecedent of 'which'?]



## sb70012

115. Turkey is one of the countries in the world which …….. a lot of tourists from 1980 to now. 

a)attracts 
b)has attracted (*Answer Key*)
c)attract 
d)is attracting

Source: text book

Hello,
Would you please be kind enough to tell me that why "*a*" and "*d*" do not work in the test?

Thank you


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## Copyright

Those two are present tense, but I think that past tense is needed here because the time period we're discussing is in the past -- it's over and done with: no more tourists arriving.


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## DonnyB

sb70012 said:


> Would you please be kind enough to tell me that why "*a*" and "*d*" do not work in the test?


It's because the phrase "from 1980 to now" at the end of the sentence denotes _t__he last 30+ years (i.e it's a period of time extending back into the past). 

_So you can't use (a) or (d) which are both present tenses.


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## RM1(SS)

And I would say "Turkey is one of *the countries* in the world which *have attracted* a lot of tourists from 1980 to now."


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## sb70012

RM1(SS) said:


> And I would say "Turkey is one of *the countries* in the world which *have attracted* a lot of tourists from 1980 to now."


Wait, wait, I got confused. Why "*have*"? Do you mean using "*has*" in the test is incorrect?

Thank you


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## Parla

> And I would say "Turkey is one of *the countries* in the world which *have attracted* a lot of tourists from 1980 to now."


So would I. The way it was written is a common error. Some years back, there was a great rash of comments in the magazine-publishing world when a leading women's magazine wanted to point out that its readers included all kinds of women, not just women who were stay-at-home wives. The publisher ran an ad with a picture of a woman at her job, with the headline, "She's one of those 'housewives' who reads ___________." Of course it should have said "who _read_".


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## sb70012

Why "*have*"? Do you mean using "*has*" in the test is incorrect?


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## Edinburgher

sb70012 said:


> Why "*have*"? Do you mean using "*has*" in the test is incorrect?


 Yes.  There are countries which have attracted tourists, and Turkey is one of those countries.
*Which* refers to *countries*, not to *Turkey*.


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## sb70012

But why haven't Donny and Copyright mentioned it to me before?


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## dn88

sb70012 said:


> But why haven't Donny and Copyright mentioned it to me before?


They probably missed that part.


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## Edinburgher

Because they stayed on topic and answered only your original question.


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## sb70012

I don't agree with that opinion.
Turkey is * one* of the countries. The singular form relates to 'one', not to 'countries'.


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## Edinburgher

That's perhaps what you want it to relate to, but in English we like not to have the antecedent of a pronoun too far back from the pronoun, and we usually assume the nearest plausible antecedent is the one intended.  Of course the noun-verb agreement between *has* and *countries* is wrong, while that between *has* and *country* would be right, but we tend to view that as a mistake in the writing.

There would be an error of logic, specifically of relevance.  If what you want to say is that *Turkey has attracted a lot of tourists*, then there is no need to mention "countries in the world".  Even if you say  *Turkey is a country which has attracted a lot of tourists*, there is still an implication that Turkey is one of several countries that have attracted tourists, but at least this *which* refers to the singular *country* (and therefore indirectly to Turkey).  As soon as you say *Turkey is one of the** X which,* then we expect *which* to modify X.

Another problem is that if you singularize *which* because of *has*, then *world* becomes (at least in principle) another plausible antecedent (indeed more plausible than *Turkey*), and we don't want that.


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## RM1(SS)

Countries have attracted tourists.
Turkey is one of them.
(*Turkey is* one) of (*the countries* that *have attracted* tourists).


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## DonnyB

I'm convinced by the argument that "which" in that sentence refers back to "countries" (plural), and therefore the verb which follows it _should_ be a plural form.   However, the only one of the four possible answers which then fits is (c) _attract,_ which is the wrong tense and which nobody including the OP has suggested using.

As is so often the case with these multiple-choice answer tests, I think you have to focus on what the _most obvious_ correct answer is out of the ones offered, without getting too side-tracked over how the rest of the question is worded.


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## sb70012

Everybody, thanks for answering. I have made up two sentences which are similar to the one in this thread. I have done this to learn this thread very well. Look at these self made examples:

He is one of the *guys who smoke* a lot.  (Here, "smoke" refers to the "guys")
He is one of the *guys who smokes* a lot. 

The first one is correct and the next one is incorrect.

Am I right?


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## Florentia52

I agree with your assessment. This would also be correct:

"He is *the only one* of the guys *who smokes *a lot."


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## sb70012

Oh my God, how tricky. So you have used "*smokes*" because of "*the only one of*" yes?


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## VicNicSor

sb70012 said:


> Oh my God, how tricky. So you have used "*smokes*" because of "*the only one of*" yes?


Yes, no one of the guys smokes a lot except him.

"He is *the only one* of the guys *who smokes*."
No one of the guys smokes at all except him.


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## Florentia52

Yes. The subject of "smoke/s" in that sentence is "one" (or "the only one").


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## sb70012

Turkey is *one of the countries* in the world which *are* *attracting* a lot of tourists *now*.

Is it ok if I use "*are attracting*" + "*now*"?


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## Parla

> Turkey is *one of the countries* in the world which *are* *attracting* a lot of tourists *now*.
> Is it ok if I use "*are attracting*" + "*now*"?


It's okay _with or without _"now"; "which are" is correct because it's plural and it refers to countries.

Actually it should be _that_, not "which", but that vs. which (restrictive and nonrestrictive clauses) is a whole other subject.


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## sb70012

Wait, wait, I have found some threads similar to mine but they have used singular verb. Look:


moguwai007 said:


> Could you please tell me which is correct?
> 1)That is *one of the* latest movies in Australia, which *has* not been released in theaters yet.
> 2)That is *one of the* latest movies in Australia, which *have* not been released in theaters yet.





Beryl from Northallerton said:


> A prescriptivist will tell you  that only *(1) can be correct*. In practice, I suspect, many native  speakers will make 'have' agree with 'movies'.


*Source*: one of the latest movies "which have" or "which has"

*********************************************************************************


sunnyweather said:


> I'd like to ask you which verb form will be correct in this sentence: 'are' or 'is'
> 
> In the country where I live (Poland) *one of the most popular dishes* *are* / *is* dumplings.





entangledbank said:


> The verb almost always agrees with the head of the subject - that's the underlined part in these:
> The most popular dish is dumplings.
> The most popular one is dumplings.
> One of the most popular dishes *is* dumplings.





Packard said:


> The confusion arises because of the proximity of  "*dishes*" (in the plural form) with the verb. But the noun that is the  subject of the sentence is "*one*", a singular noun. So the correct verb  form is "*is*".





Jerail said:


> Just picture what you're actually talking about in your mind. When you say "*one of the most popular dishes*" you're referring to *a single dish*, not a bunch of dishes.


*Source*: one of the most popular dishes is / are ?

************************************************************************************


asinaj said:


> "*One of the reasons* for... *is*/*are* the painful  crises". My feeling is to use the verb in the *singular form*, since I  believe it should agree with the word "one". But I got confused because  of that plural complement "painful crises".





tepatria said:


> *You are correct*. The verb goes with one reason, not with crises.





sdgraham said:


> As tepatria posted, *you are correct*.
> Note, however, that this is a common error among native speakers and don't be misled when you see it misused.


*Source*: one of the reasons for ... is/are the painful crises

*********************************************************************************
This is my question:
You see in the similar threads all have said that a singular verb should be used. These threads are similar to my question in construction. Why haven't they used a plural verb like me but I have used a plural verb?


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## Giorgio Spizzi

Hullo, Flo. 

How about

"He is *the only one* of [the guys *who smokeØ *a lot.]" ?

i.e. We are choosing a guy for our basketball team. In our school quite a few students smoke; some smoke a lot. We wouldn't want to have a smoker in the team, but we're ready to make an exception in consideration of this one heavy-smoking chap's extraordinary ability. 

GS


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## sb70012

Didn't you read post #17 Giorgio?


Florentia52 said:


> This would also be correct:
> "He is *the only one* of the guys *who smokes *a lot."


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## Edinburgher

In #23 you give three examples (I'll call them A, B, and C) which you say are similar in construction.  But actually only A is similar in construction to the Turkey example (but not equivalent, see below).

Examples B and C are entirely different because they do not have a which-clause.  In both B and C the subject takes the form "one of the <plural noun>", and is therefore singular.

In example A (Australian films), It's more likely that  the which-clause is non-defining (the presence of the comma is a clue)  and that two independent statements are being made about "that film":  (1) it is one of Australia's latest, and (2) it has not been released  yet.  It's not talking about a bunch of latest films that have not  yet been released, of which "that" is one.  So this *which* refers to "that film", not to "the latest films".  It would have been possible (and perhaps preferable) to write this sentence without a which-clause, e.g.: "That is one of the latest movies in Australia,  _and it has_ not been released in theatres yet."

In our Turkey example we have "X is one of Y which has Z", and the semantic association is "X is one of (Y which has Z)", except that *has* has to be *have* because Y is plural.  The which-clause is a defining clause as far as Y is concerned, and then X is selected from the Y set and presented as an example of one country that has a lot of tourists.  The set Y is the set of countries which are defined by their attribute that they have a lot of tourists, and X is one of them.  So this *which* refers to the countries, not to Turkey.

If you tried to re-write the Turkey example with "and it" instead of "which", you would see that it doesn't make sense.  That's what makes it different from the films example.
_Turkey is one of the countries in the world, and it has attracted a lot of tourists from 1980 to now._
What is wrong with this is that it incorporates a pointless tautology.  Of course Turkey is one of the countries in the world, it's so obvious that it does not need to be said.  The only reason for even mentioning "the countries in the world" is so that the which-clause can be applied to this phrase.


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## sb70012

Thanks for answering but so long an explanation. 
It's hard for me a nonnative English speaker to detect the difference between example A and my Turkey example.
Would you please be kind enough to explain its difference by giving two different examples (sentences)? I mean one sentence like example A and one sentence like my Turkey example? If you do so I will know the subtle tricky part.
I will learn it easily if you just explain it by two different examples with brief explanation.
Thank you


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## sb70012

Edinburgher said:


> It's more likely that  the which-clause is non-defining (the presence of the *comma* is a clue)


But mine can also have a *comma*. There is no difference between my example and that example:

Turkey is one of the countries in the world, which *have attracted* a lot of tourists from 1980 to now.
That is one of the latest movies in Australia, which *has* *not been* released in theaters yet.


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## Kunio

I'm a native English speaker and you guys are confusing me in this thread (<*<*_chatspeak_*>*>).  I still think the initial question sounds fine.

 It's like saying "Turkey is part of a group of countries in the world that has attracted a lot of tourists..."

It is always correct to use "has" with a singular, which applies to either Turkey alone, or Turkey as part of _one group_.

I tried to think of another example that uses a similar structure, with a word that already encompasses a group by definition (class):

"Tom is one of the kids in his class, who speaks the best English."

There are many kids in the class, but Tom is only one (singular).  The class, although comprised of many children, is one group (singular).

"Tom is one of the kids in his class, who speaks the best English."

Now there is a subset of kids in the class that speak English well, of which Tom is a part.  This is still a singular subset.  "The kids who speak English well" becomes a group distinct from the class, but still a singular group.

"Turkey is one of the countries in the world which has attracted a lot of tourists from 1980 to now."
Similarly, Turkey is part of a group of countries that has attracted a lot of tourists.  Whether you are referring to Turkey itself, or to the _one group_ of "countries which have attracted many tourists", it is singular.


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## sb70012

Jesus Christ. Poor SB.  
Different answers.


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## Parla

> But mine can also have a *comma*. There is no difference between my example and that example:
> 
> Turkey is one of the countries in the world, which *have attracted* a lot of tourists from 1980 to now.
> That is one of the latest movies in Australia, which *has* *not been* released in theaters yet.


The two sentences above are quite different. 

The second one is correct, and it could be restated slightly differently: *That is one of the latest movies in Australia; it has not been released in theaters yet.* It makes sense, right? The movie we're talking about is one of a group, the group being the latest movies in Australia. It (the one we're talking about) hasn't yet been released in theaters. The sentence says what we mean to say: that this particular movie hasn't been released yet.

Now, let's take the first sentence. As it's written here, it _doesn't_ say what we mean to say. If we rewrite it in a way similar to that above (I'm going to omit "from 1980 . . . " because it has nothing to do with the question), it says: *Turkey is one of the countries of the world; they [the countries of the world] have attracted a lot of tourists.* That doesn't make a lot of sense, does it? We all know that Turkey is a country, so why would we say that it is? And do we really want to say that the countries of the world (that is, _all_ of them) have attracted a lot of tourists? I don't think so.

The correct sentence would be: *Turkey is one of the countries of the world that have attracted a lot of tourists.* If we similarly rephrase this one, we get:* There are countries of the world that have attracted a lot of tourists; Turkey is one of them.* And that's exactly what we mean to say, right?

Why can you surf the internet and come up with many examples of such sentences written incorrectly? First, because many people make mistakes, and we don't have grammar police patrolling the internet to correct errors. Second, because people often see, or hear, _what was really meant_. In the above sentence about Turkey, I pointed out that it doesn't really make sense. But people reading it will usually automatically figure out what the speaker or writer probably meant to say. And unless they're in a forum discussing language, like this one, they won't stop and analyze the structure of the sentence.


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## Kunio

Edinburgher said:


> Don't worry, SB.  Kunio is wrong.  I'll explain why when I have more time.



Your post made me think the most.  I'm interested to hear what you have to say.

I agree that the issue is poor wording.  It has other issues too, like "from 1980 to now" makes it sound continuous, which would make it:
"Turkey is one of the countries in the world which has been attracting a lot of tourists from 1980 to now."

But ultimately the goal of the sentence (sans clumsiness) is to say that Turkey (one country) has attracted many tourists.


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## sb70012

Is comma needed after the word "*world*" or not? Or I should omit it?

 Turkey is one of the countries in the *world**,* which *have attracted* a lot of tourists from 1980 to now.


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## Kunio

Parla said:


> The two sentences above are quite different.
> 
> The second one is correct, and it could be restated slightly differently: *That is one of the latest movies in Australia; it has not been released in theaters yet.* It makes sense, right? The movie we're talking about is one of a group, the group being the latest movies in Australia. It (the one we're talking about) hasn't yet been released in theaters. The sentence says what we mean to say: that this particular movie hasn't been released yet.



How is a group of movies different from a group of countries?  "the latest movies in Australia" is one group just much as "the countries of the world that have attracted a lot of tourists" is one group.  The "1980 to now" part _is_ relevant.  Turkey (the one we're talking about) has been part of the group (of countries that have been attracting a lot of tourists) from 1980 to now.

It is the same as the movie example, because the group isn't "all the countries in the world", it's "the countries that have been attracting a lot of tourists".

  Turkey is one of (group: countries of the world that have been attracting a lot of tourists) that has attracted tourists from 1980 to now.
  The movie is one of (group: latest movies in Australia) that has not been released in theaters.

The first one is redundant, but it's because the point is how long they've been doing it, not simply that they have been doing it.


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## Myridon

sb70012 said:


> Turkey is one of the countries in the *world**,* which *have attracted* a lot of tourists from 1980 to now.


No comma. A comma would make it seem like the clause was meant to go with "world" or was parenthetical (which would you back to the main idea of the sentence being "Turkey is a country.")


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## Parla

> Is a comma needed after the word "*world*" or not? Or I should omit it?
> Turkey is one of the countries in the *world**, which have attracted *a lot of tourists from 1980 to now.​



As I said in post #32, the _correct_ sentence is: Turkey is one of the countries of the world *that* have attracted a lot of tourists [from 1980 to now]. There should _not_ be any comma.

(The difference between "which" and "that", and the subject of restrictive and nonrestrictive clauses, has been discussed in many other threads, so I won't go into it here. You can look it up using the forum reference box.)
​


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## Edinburgher

No, Kunio.  The Turkey and movie examples are fundamentally different.  Parla has explained this very well, but still you don't seem to have quite grasped it.

Your problem (in the Turkey case) is that your excellent intuition makes you understand immediately what the sentence's writer wanted to imply: That Turkey *has* {singular} attracted many tourists.

Normally, excellent intuition is a good thing, but here I've called it a problem because it blinds you to the underlying grammar.  The sentence actually says that Turkey is a member of a group.  A group of what?  A group of countries.  What kind of countries?  Countries that *have* {plural} attracted many tourists.  All the countries in this group have attracted many tourists.  That is the defining feature of countries in that group.  Because Turkey is in this group, it too has (by implication) attracted many tourists.  The sentence mentions countries that *have* attracted tourists and tells us that Turkey is one of *those* countries.

The movies example is different.  It tells us that "that" is one of a group of movies.  A group of what movies?  Australia's latest movies.  The defining feature of this group of movies is that they are all very new, very recent, they are "the latest".  We must assume,  however, that many or some movies in that group *have* already been released.  It is not a defining feature of the group that they are all still unreleased.  Only "that" movie which the sentence is primarily interested in *has* not yet been released.  Perhaps a few others have too, but the sentence isn't talking about them.

Does that help?


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## Myridon

Kunio said:


> How is a group of movies different from a group of countries?


It's not that groups of movies are not like groups of countries, but the particular context and sense of the entire sentence.
It's very unlikely to mean that even if it did. Can you make a list of "the movies that have not been released in theaters yet?" What movies does that include exactly?  Do they have to have finished filming or not?


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## Kunio

Parla's rewording "Turkey is one of the countries of the world that have attracted a lot of tourists." makes perfect sense to me.  I was somewhat playing devil's advocate on the part of the test writer, because I feel that using "have" changes the meaning of the sentence.

When you use "have", you are talking about two things - both Turkey and the group "the other countries that have been attracting a lot of tourists".
When you use "has", you are talking about one thing - Turkey, but noting that it is a member of the group "the countries that have been attracting a lot of tourists".

This changes the meaning of the sentence drastically.  When Turkey alone is the subject, it is the only one that has been doing it since 1980.  Saying "have" includes both Turkey and the rest of the group together, which states that Turkey _and_ all the other popular countries have been doing it since 1980.

Turkey is one of the countries in the world which has attracted a lot of tourists from 1980 to now.
I was arguing that the point of the sentence is to say that Turkey is a popular country (among others), but it is the only one that has been attracting tourists since 1980.  Validity of the statement aside, does this not make sense?
If everyone else thinks I'm crazy I'll stop being so stubborn.


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## Fontalys

One might say for simplicity, "He is the guy who smokes".

<<~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~>>

Why not say for simplicity, "Turkey has attracted a lot of tourists in the past".
We all know that Turkey is a country so why include that excessive weight of verbiage.


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## Edinburgher

Kunio said:


> I was arguing that the point of the sentence is to say that Turkey is a popular country (among others), but it is the only one that has been attracting tourists since 1980.  Validity of the statement aside, does this not make sense?


 It makes perfect sense to think that that's what the sentence might at one stage have been meant to say (perhaps originally in the Turkish language, in a Turkish tourism brochure, before it was badly translated into English), but unfortunately the sentence fails to express that.
"Validity aside"?  Well, I'm glad you accept that the sentence is invalid, but it appeared in a test question!  Not a good place for invalid sentences.

To analyze the sentence, you can start from the back, see "has", and deduce that the antecedent of 'which' must be singular.  The only candidates are "world" and "Turkey".  For the sentence to be well formed, it really has to be "world", but this fails to make sense semantically (I think it's safe to assume there was no intention to refer to extraterrestrial tourists). Even if it's "Turkey", there is a defect because then mention of the "countries in the world" provides no meaningful input.  So "has" has to be wrong.

As it happens, "in the world" should probably have been "worldwide", to make clear we are not talking only about, say, Mediterranean countries.

So, analyzing from the front instead, we see "Turkey is one of the countries (worldwide) which ..." and we say "Aha!  We now expect something which describes 'countries'."  So we expect a plural verb.  When we find "has", it must be wrong.  If we'd left 'worldwide' as 'in the world', then on seeing "in the world which..." we say "Aha! We now expect something which describes 'world'."  So we expect a singular verb and, behold, we find "has".  Great!  We carry on and reach the same extraterrestrial dead end.

There is no way  the sentence as written can possibly make 'which' refer to 'Turkey'.  If you want it to, you have to rewrite it significantly.
With 'have' instead of 'has', it at least makes some sense, although it fails to bring out that Turkey has been particularly successful since 1980.


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## sb70012

Hello again,
What if I add "*the only one of*"?

*Turkey* is *the only one of the countries *of the world that *have attracted* a lot of tourists [from 1980 to now] 
*Turkey* is *one of the countries *of the world that *has attracted* a lot of tourists [from 1980 to now] 

Both are correct. Right?


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## Edinburgher

No.  Both are incorrect, you have your *has* and *have* the wrong way round.  You already know the second one is incorrect, because that's what we've been talking about all this time.

*Turkey* is *one of the countries *of the world that *has attracted* a lot of tourists [from 1980 to now] 
*Turkey* is *one of the countries *of the world that *have attracted* a lot of tourists [from 1980 to now] 

Where it gets interesting is in your new example with "the only one".  Here we have two ways to group the parts of the sentence.

One way is to group right, so _countries_ goes with the that-clause, exactly as before:
*Turkey* is *the only one of the X.
  X = "countries *of the world that *have attracted* a lot of tourists".

The other way is to group left, so _countries_ goes with Turkey:
*Turkey* is *the only X that **has attracted* a lot of tourists".
*X = "one of the countries".
*
This is possible, but:
1) It would be more idiomatic to change "one of the countries" to "country": *Turkey* is *the only country *of the world that *has attracted* a lot of tourists 
2) There is still a possibility that a reader might associate *that* with *world*.  We can prevent this in speech by using intonation.  In writing it would be safer to say "worldwide" instead of "in the world".

So, finally, if we write *Turkey* is *the only country *worldwide that *has attracted* a lot of tourists,
you still need to be aware that grammatically, *that* still does not refer to *Turkey*.  It refers to *country*.  But semantically, *country* means *the only country*, and that "is" Turkey.


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## Giorgio Spizzi

Hullo, sb.

Sorry for answering so late, but why do you ask me whether I read Flo's #17 post? I certainly did, but Flo's sentence and my own "bracketed" sentence are different and mean different things. 

GS


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## sb70012

Hello again, I have almost understood the whole thread. Thank you so much. There is just one thing that makes me confused. Edinburgher, I think I have made some typos in my post #42. I read your answer but didn't understand very well because I had made some typos in my post #42.
In the first page of the thread, Florentia said:


Florentia52 said:


> 1. He is *the only one* of the guys *who smokes *a lot.
> 2. He is one of the *guys who smoke* a lot.
> 3. He is one of the *guys who smokes* a lot.



This is my question:
This example: 





> Turkey is *the only one of *the countries of the world *that has* attracted a lot of tourists.


 is similar to Florentia's #1 example. He has used "*the only one of*" + "*singular verb*" (smokes)
Then, why this (my new) example is incorrect but Florentia's example #1 is correct?:
Isn't this similar to the one Florentia has mentioned in his example #1?

(Sorry if I asked this question twice. I did it because I had made some typos in post #42)


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## Edinburgher

sb70012 said:


> Hello again, I have almost understood the whole thread. Thank you so much. There is just one thing that makes me confused. Edinburgher, I think I have made some typos in my post #42. I read your answer but didn't understand very well because I had made some typos in my post #42.
> 
> Then, why this (my new) example is incorrect but Florentia's example #1 is correct?:
> Isn't this similar to the one Florentia has mentioned in his example #1?


 In #42 you only used "the only one" in your first example, while your second example still used only the simple "one of" that we had been discussing previously.
In your first example, you used "have" when I think you had intended to use "has".  I think you had wanted to mirror Florentia's example of "the only one of the guys who smokes".

Your #45 example:
_Turkey is *the only one of *the countries of the world *that has* attracted a lot of tourists.
_is OK, although I would have preferred
_Turkey is *the only country* of the world *that has* attracted a lot of tourists._


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## sb70012

Thanks a million. I don't know how to thank you.
I completely understood it.


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