Examkin

Question

Difficulty: MediumSubject-Verb Agreement (Concord)

Complete the sentence below by supplying the correct form of the verb that agrees with the subject in accordance with the rules of grammatical concord. Which verb correctly fills the blank?

Answer:Not only the chief financial officer but also the senior accountants 【were】 held responsible for the audit discrepancies discovered last week.

Answer

The correct verb to fill the blank is 'were' (or 'are' / 'have been'), because correlative conjunctions such as 'not only... but also' require the verb to agree in number with the subject closest to it (the plural noun 'senior accountants').
When subjects are joined by correlative conjunctions like 'not only... but also', the verb agrees in number with the subject nearest to it. Because 'the senior accountants' is plural and directly precedes the verb, the plural verb form 'were' (or 'are' / 'have been') is required.

Step-by-Step Solution

1
Identify the syntactic structure connecting the subjects in the sentence.
The singular subject 'the chief financial officer' and plural subject 'the senior accountants' are linked by the correlative conjunction 'not only... but also...'.
Sentences using correlative conjunctions follow the rule of proximity concord rather than joint/compound subject rules.
2
Apply the rule of proximity concord to identify the governing subject.
The verb must agree with the nearer subject, which is the plural noun phrase 'the senior accountants'.
Under proximity concord, the noun immediately preceding the verb slot dictates whether the verb is singular or plural.
3
Select the appropriate plural verb form to complete the sentence grammatically.
The plural past verb 'were' (or present 'are' / perfect 'have been') correctly matches the plural subject.
Plural noun phrases demand a plural verb agreement.

Key Concept

Proximity Concord with Correlative Conjunctions
Estimated Time:1m 0s
Rate this question

Topics

Subject-Verb Agreement (Concord)

More questions from this topic