question S/V agreement -- need expert help

[voodoo_child]

Jie Gan of Cheung Kong Graduate School of Business, Yan Guo of Peking University and Chenggang Xu of the University of Hong Kong conclude that the return on assets and profitability per employee for companies that have undergone partial share offerings IS indistinguishable from those that were not privatised at all.

Shouldnt the verb be "are" ? The subject is "the return on X and profitability for Y"

Correct?

[aspirant2011]

Jie Gan of Cheung Kong Graduate School of Business, Yan Guo of Peking University and Chenggang Xu of the University of Hong Kong conclude that the return on assets and profitability per employee for companies that have undergone partial share offerings IS indistinguishable from those that were not privatised at all.

Shouldnt the verb be "are" ? The subject is "the return on X and profitability for Y"

Correct?

I also feel that the verb should have been are

[patanjali.purpose]

Jie Gan of Cheung Kong Graduate School of Business, Yan Guo of Peking University and Chenggang Xu of the University of Hong Kong conclude that the return on assets and profitability per employee for companies that have undergone partial share offerings IS indistinguishable from those that were not privatised at all.

Shouldnt the verb be "are" ? The subject is "the return on X and profitability for Y"

Correct?

Normally subject of a clause will not be part of a prepositional phrase - here 'on assets and profitability per employee' is a prepositional phrase.

Moreover, the clause wants to emphasize on 'THE RETURN' and therefore its the subject.

Since THE RETURN is signular IS is ok.

[aspirant2011]

Jie Gan of Cheung Kong Graduate School of Business, Yan Guo of Peking University and Chenggang Xu of the University of Hong Kong conclude that the return on assets and profitability per employee for companies that have undergone partial share offerings IS indistinguishable from those that were not privatised at all.

Shouldnt the verb be "are" ? The subject is "the return on X and profitability for Y"

Correct?

Normally subject of a clause will not be part of a prepositional phrase - here 'on assets and profitability per employee' is a prepositional phrase.

Moreover, the clause wants to emphasize on 'THE RETURN' and therefore its the subject.

Since THE RETURN is signular IS is ok.

Hi Patanjali,

Can you please explain the same in little bit more detail?

[patanjali.purpose]

Jie Gan of Cheung Kong Graduate School of Business, Yan Guo of Peking University and Chenggang Xu of the University of Hong Kong conclude that the return on assets and profitability per employee for companies that have undergone partial share offerings IS indistinguishable from those that were not privatised at all.

Shouldnt the verb be "are" ? The subject is "the return on X and profitability for Y"

Correct?

Normally subject of a clause will not be part of a prepositional phrase - here 'on assets and profitability per employee' is a prepositional phrase.

Moreover, the clause wants to emphasize on 'THE RETURN' and therefore its the subject.

Since THE RETURN is signular IS is ok.

Hi Patanjali,

Can you please explain the same in little bit more detail?

Example 1 (OG12):
Fossils of the arm of a sloth, found in Puerto Rico in 1991, have been dated at 34 million years old, making the sloth the earliest known mammal on... (of the arm of a sloth =/= subject as its a prep phrase; subject is Fossils and therefore the verb is 'have been'

Example 2 (source: https://www.chompchomp.com/terms/subject.htm)
The subject of a verb will never be part of a prepositional phrase. A prepositional phrase begins with a preposition [in, on, at, between, among, etc.] and ends with a noun, pronoun, or gerund. Look at these examples of prepositional phrases:

in the dirty bathtub

on the bumpy road

at home

between us

among the empty pizza boxes

without crying

Hope it helps.

[voodoo_child]

Jie Gan of Cheung Kong Graduate School of Business, Yan Guo of Peking University and Chenggang Xu of the University of Hong Kong conclude that the return on assets and profitability per employee for companies that have undergone partial share offerings IS indistinguishable from those that were not privatised at all.

Shouldnt the verb be "are" ? The subject is "the return on X and profitability for Y"

Correct?

Normally subject of a clause will not be part of a prepositional phrase - here 'on assets and profitability per employee' is a prepositional phrase.

Moreover, the clause wants to emphasize on 'THE RETURN' and therefore its the subject.

Since THE RETURN is signular IS is ok.

Ok. If I go by that logic, and also if I break the parallelism,

the return on assets and on profitability X => doesnt sound logical to me.

BTW, the idea of "return on X and profitability per employee" can be considered as a singular concept. May be that could be the reason. I am not sure and that's why I asked for an expert to comment.


Voodoo

[ColumbiaVC]

Jie Gan of Cheung Kong Graduate School of Business, Yan Guo of Peking University and Chenggang Xu of the University of Hong Kong conclude that the return on assets and profitability per employee for companies that have undergone partial share offerings IS indistinguishable from those that were not privatised at all.

I am confused with "those" and also is there a comparison issue? (Return compared to companies that were not privatized).

[spoiler][/spoiler]

[aspirant2011]

Jie Gan of Cheung Kong Graduate School of Business, Yan Guo of Peking University and Chenggang Xu of the University of Hong Kong conclude that the return on assets and profitability per employee for companies that have undergone partial share offerings IS indistinguishable from those that were not privatised at all.

Shouldnt the verb be "are" ? The subject is "the return on X and profitability for Y"

Correct?

Normally subject of a clause will not be part of a prepositional phrase - here 'on assets and profitability per employee' is a prepositional phrase.

Moreover, the clause wants to emphasize on 'THE RETURN' and therefore its the subject.

Since THE RETURN is signular IS is ok.

Hi Patanjali,

Can you please explain the same in little bit more detail?

Example 1 (OG12):
Fossils of the arm of a sloth, found in Puerto Rico in 1991, have been dated at 34 million years old, making the sloth the earliest known mammal on... (of the arm of a sloth =/= subject as its a prep phrase; subject is Fossils and therefore the verb is 'have been'

Example 2 (source: https://www.chompchomp.com/terms/subject.htm)
The subject of a verb will never be part of a prepositional phrase. A prepositional phrase begins with a preposition [in, on, at, between, among, etc.] and ends with a noun, pronoun, or gerund. Look at these examples of prepositional phrases:

in the dirty bathtub

on the bumpy road

at home

between us

among the empty pizza boxes

without crying

Hope it helps.

Thanks a lot Patanjali, it was indeed a good link and nice explanation

[DanaJ]

Just got a PM.

To my knowledge, there is no such thing as a "return on profitability per employee." So for me the initial sentence must be in the plural, i.e. the correct version should be "return [...] and profitability [...] are"

You can also spot another error here, since they "conclude that the return and profitability are indistinguishable from those that were not privatized." This should be "the return and profitability are indistinguishable from those of companies that were not privatized at all." In the original sentence, we're matching "return and profitability" with "companies," which doesn't work.

[krishp84]

Just got a PM.

To my knowledge, there is no such thing as a "return on profitability per employee." So for me the initial sentence must be in the plural, i.e. the correct version should be "return [...] and profitability [...] are"

You can also spot another error here, since they "conclude that the return and profitability are indistinguishable from those that were not privatized." This should be "the return and profitability are indistinguishable from those of companies that were not privatized at all." In the original sentence, we're matching "return and profitability" with "companies," which doesn't work.

The original sentence is correct.

Skeleton of the sentence -

1.1) Jie Gan of Cheung Kong Graduate School of Business,
1.2) Yan Guo of Peking University and
1.3) Chenggang Xu of the University of Hong Kong
conclude that
2.1) the return on assets and profitability per employee for companies [that have undergone partial share offerings]
2.2.1-COMPARISON) IS indistinguishable from
2.2) those that were not privatised at all.

"is indistinguishable from" is correct in this case because of THE in 2.1)
If there is no "THE" in (2.1), then "are indistinguishable from" is correct.

Btw - the source of this sentence - https://www.economist.com/node/21528262

[DanaJ]

I'm not convinced, to be honest. What is the subject here? Is it "the return" or is it "the return and profitability"? Again, I don't believe there is such a thing as a "return on profitability." Or maybe I'm missing something?

[krishp84]

I'm not convinced, to be honest. What is the subject here? Is it "the return" or is it "the return and profitability"?

Subject - the return on assets and profitability per employee for companies
IS - linking verb
Frankly speaking, I am not a grammar fan. So do not like the term "linking verb", but it conveys the correct meaning in this context.

Again, I don't believe there is such a thing as a "return on profitability."

Yes - That is correct. There is no such thing as a "return on profitability.". One of the correct usages will be "return to profitability" because "profitability" is the "ability to earn a profit". So, in this case we may use "return on sales per employee" or anything that makes sense contextually.

One of the correct versions of the sentence avoiding the wrong idiom will be -
Jie Gan of Cheung Kong Graduate School of Business, Yan Guo of Peking University and Chenggang Xu of the University of Hong Kong conclude that the return on assets and sales per employee for companies that have undergone partial share offerings is indistinguishable from those that were not privatised at all.
Or maybe I'm missing something?

@voodoo_child - Why do you not quote the source of the questions or at least mention that you do not know the source? This is a sharing forum. So please put the source if you know or mention the source as unknown. That way no one will be left guessing. The article was hardly 2 or 3 days old.