On page 83,Ch. 5 of the Foundations of GMAT verbal I came accross a simple example that I became lost in"

FIND THE SUBJECT: None of the guests have arrived.

I know 'None' is the subject and 'of the guests' is a prepositional phrase, but the way the book has taught me is to cross out the prepositional phrases to match up the Subject and Verb.

In this instance I would recognize 'None' as being an indefinite pronoun which is always singular, therefore the verb should be 'has arrived' not 'have arrived'. But when I look that guests is the antecedent for 'none' the verb being plural then makes since.

So to make some mental guidelines I'm guessing I should,
NOT blast through crossing out prepositional phrases, especially if the subject is a pronoun. Always look for antecedntants of any pronouns except for 'it'. and match up the verb.

I'm guessing indefinitie pronouns by themselves are okay and are always singular, but when its antecedent exists in the sentence, use the antecedent to tell whether it requires a singular or plural verb? I would appreciate any guidance. Thx

Nevermind. As you go into the Sentence correction bible in the subject-verb agreement chapter it goes into detail about the SANAM pronouns in how you need to look at the preopositional phrases to tell whether the indefinite pronoun subject should be singular or plural.

The verbal foundations could of included this little tidbit that was confusing as there are rule that don;t let you just cross out prepositional phrases. It all meshes well together now.

Good to hear. Yes, the SANAMs are a special case.

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Jamie Nelson
ManhattanGMAT Instructor