Linked by Thom Holwerda on Wed 7th May 2008 21:24 UTC
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RE[6]: Pants treated as plural
by siride on Fri 9th May 2008 14:30
in reply to "RE[5]: Pants treated as plural"
Member since:2006-01-02
Member since:
2005-06-29
It differs per language. You can either determine plurality by looking at the meaning of the word in question, or by looking at the grammatical structure of the word. For instance, it's "a number of people ARE" in English, even though the subject ("a number of people") is grammatically singular. In Dutch, you get "een aantal mensen IS" (is = is), exactly because the subject is grammatically singular.
Another fun case is the notation of percentages. In English, you say "50% of people are", while in Dutch, you say "50% van de mensen is", simply because a percentage might be plural in meaning, it's still singular grammatically. This is actually something even native Dutch speaker struggle with.