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A Family of Nine

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A Family of Nine

by kdraj » Mon Aug 01, 2011 1:28 am
Hi I recently came across the following sentence in one newspaper.

"Around him sit a family of nine" -----> A family of nine sit around him

Should it be 'sits' or 'sit'

I am 80% confident that it should be 'sits' instead of 'sit'. Can anyone confirm if my reasoning below is right ?

Family is a singluar term, but when a prepositional phrase(indicating a number) is added to a Singular entity like family does it still stay Singular ? Or, do we treat the prepositional phrase as a modifier and take family as singular ?

Thanks !
kdraj
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by Frankenstein » Mon Aug 01, 2011 8:42 am
Hi,
It should be 'sits'. The part in the prepositional phrase doesn't influence the subject 'family'.
Cheers!

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