Hello,

 

A sentence on this pattern came up as an proposed item for a standardized test recently:

 

"The lynx belongs to the family felidae and is a mammal. *Others* are the wildcat, cougar, and cheetah."

 

It is a multiple choice item. The question stem is "What does the word *others* in line ## refer to?"

 

Two of the choices are:

 

A. felidae

B. wildcat, cougar, and cheetah

 

I'm not sure whether felidae is singular or plural, that depends on whether it is nominative or genitive case. I don't think it matters since the word functions as an adjective modifying "family" and so must be singular in English.

 

So, it is difficult to see how the plural pronoun "others" can refer to a singular felidae family.  It seems more closely associated with "wildcat, cougar and cheetah" though this phrase is the complement of "are" and not a pronoun referent.

 

According to the item writer, the word "others" refers to "felidae."

 

This is part of a reading comprehension test and so raises another question: how can identification of the correct pronoun referent can be interpreted as evidence of comprehending a text?

 

Mark