Semantic factors. This section deals with the semantic influence of the verb and the interaction between the collective noun and the verb. There are a few verbs which seem to require plural agreement with collective nouns. In this kind of situation the speaker should decide if the focus of the collective noun is on the collective or on the members. According to Xxxxx (2001:131), decision-making bodies, such as association, commission, committee, company, council, department, government and party, almost exclusively take singular agreement in AmE, while the same nouns can occasionally take plural agreement in BrE. The nouns army, audience, band, club, crowd, group and population in general also preferred the singular in the corpora, but with some degree of variation in BrE. There are also specific verbs, such as contain, compromise, include or made up of that, if included in a sentence, make the focus of the collective as a whole, and not on the members. As seen in the following example, singular concord is in this case used:
Appears in 8 contracts
Samples: Number Agreement, Number Agreement, Number Agreement
