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English Language
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Analyze the advanced syntactic structure, distributive quantifiers, and collective agreement in the following complex sentence:"Neither of the comprehensive investigative reports compiled by the independent audit commission were made available to the public before the parliamentary session was adjourned."Identify whether the underlined verb requires grammatical modification according to standard English syntax.
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Detailed Explanation
In standard English syntax, pronouns such as 'neither' and 'either' acting as subjects are singular when used distributively, even when followed by a plural noun in a prepositional phrase (e.g., 'Neither of the reports'). Therefore, the singular verb 'was' must be used instead of the plural 'were'. For a deeper understanding of these syntactic rules, you can read more on Wikipedia Reference regarding agreement and syntax.
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