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Decades of tax information provides you a view

 
 
Reply Tue 29 Sep, 2020 09:47 am
I notice that NYT uses "provides" rather than "provide". What is the subject? "Decades" (plural) or "information" (singular)?

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Decades of tax information that President Trump has tried to hide from the public provides a detailed view of his business career, revealing huge losses, looming financial threats and a large, contested refund from the IRS. https://nyti.ms/30hQAWN

Source: NYTimes (tweeted 3h ago)
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Type: Question • Score: 0 • Views: 544 • Replies: 8
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maxdancona
 
  2  
Reply Tue 29 Sep, 2020 10:40 am
@oristarA,
The subject is "Decades of Tax information"

The Tax information provides a view into his business career.

0 Replies
 
InfraBlue
 
  2  
Reply Tue 29 Sep, 2020 10:48 am
@oristarA,
"Decades" modifies "tax information," it is not the subject.
oristarA
 
  1  
Reply Tue 29 Sep, 2020 10:05 pm
@InfraBlue,
maxdancona wrote:

The subject is "Decades of Tax information"
The Tax information provides a view into his business career.


InfraBlue wrote:

"Decades" modifies "tax information," it is not the subject.


The problem for understanding is that "of" makes "tax information" into an adverbial phrase and modifies "decades". So grammatically, it appears that "decades" is the subject.

maxdancona
 
  1  
Reply Tue 29 Sep, 2020 10:11 pm
@oristarA,
No, "Decades of" is not an clearly not adverbial phrase. An adverbial phrase modifies a verb.

"Decades of" is a quantifier. It modifies "tax information", which is an uncountable noun. Uncountable nouns generally take the singular form.
oristarA
 
  1  
Reply Tue 29 Sep, 2020 11:43 pm
@maxdancona,
maxdancona wrote:

No, "Decades of" is not an clearly not adverbial phrase. An adverbial phrase modifies a verb.

"Decades of" is a quantifier. It modifies "tax information", which is an uncountable noun. Uncountable nouns generally take the singular form.



I don't think you can put "decades" and "of" together like this.
"Decades" is a quantifier. "Decades of" is a wrong unit of grammar. "Of tax information" is different. It is clearly an adverbial phrase in which "of" means "about" or "concerning".
InfraBlue
 
  1  
Reply Wed 30 Sep, 2020 12:12 pm
@oristarA,
Wrong. If "of tax information" was an adverbial phrase, what would be the verb?
0 Replies
 
maxdancona
 
  1  
Reply Wed 30 Sep, 2020 12:16 pm
@oristarA,
I don't exactly know what you are arguing Oristar. Your desire to change the word "of" to "about" seems ridiculous to me as a native English speaker. We don't do that in English.

In English grammar, there is correct and there is incorrect. We gave you the correct answer. Whether you are willing to learn it or not is up to you.

There is no argument here. This is not an adverbial phrase.
0 Replies
 
maxdancona
 
  1  
Reply Wed 30 Sep, 2020 12:36 pm
It is not incorrect to consider "decades" to be the subject instead of "tax information. If "decades" is the subject that "of tax information" is a prepositiobal phrase. In that case using the plural form of the verb "provide" would also be correct.

This wouldn't be grammatically wrong, but it would be a worse option. This is a sentence about tax information, not about decades
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