Eric,

There's a kind of contrastive emphasis in the original wording that might be useful in some contexts. Admittedly, when I try to come up with an example, I find myself plugging in an it-cleft instead ("It is these traits which prevent..."), but there *is* an additional element of meaning conveyed by the choice of a wh-clause. "These traits, not anything else, are what prevent John from doing a better job." In speech, contrastive stress on "these" could do something similar, but it's hard to indicate that in writing easily.


Bill Spruiell
Dept. of English
Central Michigan University

-----Original Message-----
From: Assembly for the Teaching of English Grammar on behalf of Eric Muhr
Sent: Thu 7/9/2009 2:58 PM
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: Re: "what prevent" or "what prevents"
 
Although the issue is interesting, writers (and students) might be better
served by an alternate construction:

These personality traits prevent John from doing a better job.

Eric Muhr

On Thu, Jul 9, 2009 at 12:33 PM, Dick Veit <[log in to unmask]> wrote:

> Bruce:
>
> Are you confident about your first sentence ("These personality traits is
> what prevents John from doing a better job")? Surely "traits" is the subject
> of the main clause, so wouldn't it need to be "These personality traits
> are...," not "is"? As for the lower clause, I'd have that plural too, so:
>
> These personality traits are what prevent John from doing a better job.
>
> You may be right about your second sentence ("What prevent John from doing
> a better job are these personality traits"), but, at least conversationally,
> I could also find myself saying:
>
> What prevents John from doing a better job are these personality traits.
>
> In fact, I think I could say either one of these:
>
> What annoys me is/are his personality traits.
>
> I suppose that is because we sometimes begin a sentence thinking
> collectively (the thing that annoys me) only to identify that general
> "thing" with specific plural entities--resulting in a switch from singular
> to plural verb forms.
>
> Dick
>
>
>
> On Thu, Jul 9, 2009 at 1:11 PM, Bruce Despain <[log in to unmask]>wrote:
>
>> Normally the sentence in question is analyzed as having a noun clause
>> (content) as subject.  This makes the "correct" sentence:
>>
>>        These personality traits is what prevents John from doing a better
>> job.
>>
>> Putting the clause first allows the plural noun phrase to stand as
>> subject:
>>
>>        What prevent John from doing a better job are these personality
>> traits.
>>
>> The whole question of singular and plural agreement is often lost in
>> present day colloquial English.  For example, the noun phrase with the
>> pronoun "none" is usually taken as plural:  None of the passengers were
>> killed.
>> And yet, the phrase "no one" would be singular:  No one was killed.
>>
>> -----Original Message-----
>> From: Assembly for the Teaching of English Grammar [mailto:
>> [log in to unmask]] On Behalf Of Roberto Perez
>> Sent: Thursday, July 09, 2009 10:05 AM
>> To: [log in to unmask]
>> Subject: "what prevent" or "what prevents"
>>
>> Hello everyone,
>>
>> I'm having a debate with a colleague regarding this sentence:
>>
>>   These personality traits are what prevent John from doing a better job.
>>
>> One of us says the verb ("prevent") is correct, because it agrees
>> with "personality traits". The other one says it should be
>> "prevents", because the verb should agree with "what".
>>
>> During the debate a similar construction was used as a basis for
>> discussion:
>>
>>   These are the personality traits that prevent John from doing a better
>> job.
>>
>> In this case, we coincide that "personality traits" and "prevent" are
>> in agreement, and that is correct. But the use of "what" in the
>> original sentence changes things, because "that" only introduces a
>> clause, while "what" is replacing a noun phrase, such as "the elements
>> that".
>>
>> Could anyone shed some light on the issue?
>>
>> Thanks in advance,
>>
>> Roberto Perez
>> [log in to unmask]
>>
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