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Question

Difficulty: HardSubject-Verb Agreement (Concord)

Which pair of verbs correctly completes the sentence below in accordance with the rules of grammatical concord?

"Not only the chief security officer but also several of his deputies _____ questioned by the panel, even though neither of the suspect statements _____ substantiated by physical evidence."

  1. were / wasAnswer
  2. B
    was / was
  3. C
    were / were
  4. D
    was / were

Answer

were / was
In the first clause, the correlative conjunction 'not only... but also...' demands that the verb agree with the subject nearest to it. Since 'several of his deputies' is plural, the plural verb 'were' is correct. In the second clause, the indefinite pronoun 'neither' acts as the singular head of the noun phrase 'neither of the suspect statements', requiring the singular verb 'was'. Combining both rules yields 'were / was'.

Step-by-Step Solution

1
Analyze the subject-verb concord rule in the first clause.
The subject uses the correlative conjunction 'not only... but also...'. In this structure, the verb must agree in number with the element closest to it (proximity concord). The nearest noun phrase is 'several of his deputies' (plural), so a plural verb ('were') is required.
Correlative subjects joined by 'not only... but also' follow proximity agreement.
2
Analyze the subject-verb concord rule in the second clause.
The subject is headed by the indefinite pronoun 'neither' in 'neither of the suspect statements'. Indefinite pronouns like 'neither', 'either', and 'each' take singular verbs regardless of intervening plural premodifiers, so 'was' is required.
Indefinite pronouns functioning as head nouns require singular verbs.
3
Combine the results to select the correct verb pair.
The correct sequence is 'were / was'.
Matches both proximity concord for the first clause and indefinite pronoun concord for the second clause.

Key Concept

Proximity Concord and Indefinite Pronoun Agreement
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Topics

Subject-Verb Agreement (Concord)

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