Martin Sondergaard schrieb:
> 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?
>
Virtually all nouns that refer to groups behave in this way. Take for
example the word "company": "Our company is based in the South-west of
England. We supply high-quality widgets to the widget-processing
industry."
Regards, Einde O'Callaghan
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