त्वरित लिंक्स
English Language
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Read the following complex sentence containing intricate correlative structures, quantifier phrases, and proximity-based subject-verb agreement rules:"Not only the board of directors along with the chief executive officer, but also the majority of shareholders was vehemently opposed to the proposed merger."Identify whether the underlined verb requires grammatical modification and select the correct syntactic justification according to standard English syntax.
✓ Correct! Well done.
✗ Not quite — the correct answer is highlighted above.
Detailed Explanation
According to the Wikipedia Reference on grammatical agreement, when subjects are joined by correlative conjunctions such as 'not only... but also', the verb must agree with the subject that is closer to it. In this sentence, the second subject phrase 'the majority of shareholders' is positioned closer to the verb slot. Furthermore, expressions like 'the majority of' followed by a plural countable noun typically govern a plural verb in standard English syntax. Thus, the singular verb 'was' is incorrect and must be replaced with the plural verb 'were'.
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