Consider these two sentences:
A group of men played with the dogs. They were energetic.
The word "they" may possibly refer to "the group of men",
not to the dogs.
This seems illogical, because "A group" is single,
it is not plural, so "they" cannot refer to it.
So is the phrase "A group of men" a special sort of plural,
so that "they" can be applied to it?
Can the phrase "a group of men" be sometimes treated
as singular, and sometimes as plural?
Is there a category of similar phrases,
called by a term known to linguists,
which have this property of being sometimes singular
and sometimes plural?
--
Martin Sondergaard,
London, UK.
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