Reconciling Synchrony, Diachrony and Usage in Verb Number Agreement with Complex Collective Subjects

*Winner of AEDEAN Leocadio Martín Mingorance Book Award on Theoretical and Applied English Linguistics (2021)*

*Winner of ESLA Guadalupe Aguado Research Award for Young Researchers (2022)*

*Winner of ESSE Book Award 2022 for Young Researchers in the category ''English Language and Linguistics*

This book uses corpus-based methodologies to investigate the wide variety of factors behind verb number agreement with complex collective noun phrases in English.

The literature on collective nouns and their agreement patterns spans an array of disciplines and approaches. However, little of the research conducted to date has focused on the influence of of-dependents on verb number with relational collective nouns, as in examples such as a bunch of or a group of. Drawing on data from two case studies – one based on the Corpus of Historical American English (COHA), and the o