Should the word “remain” in this sentence be “remain” or “remains”?
Founded in 1900, Company XYZ is one of the few true partnerships that remain among the top banking firms of the world.
Remain. In that sentence partnerships is the reference, and that’s plural.
Agreed. The relative clause modifies “partnerships”, which is the logical subject of that clause. Although irrelevant to this question, I might point out that in the UK, “company XYZ” might also take a plural verb, odd as that sounds to this American year.
That’s not how I remember it being taught. “One” is the reference word and it’s singular. “Partnerships” is part of a prepositional phrase. The verb needs to agree with the subject or object, not the prepositional phrase.
I disagree with the other posters, it should be “remains”. The reason is that the verb is being done by one of the partnerships, so it is “one” that is doing the acting, not “partnerships”. An easy way to test this is to remove the prepositional phrase and see if it makes sense. So, remove “of the few true partnerships” then it makes sense as “…Company XYZ is one that remains among…” but not as “…Company XYZ is one that remain among…”
On re-read, I think I’m wrong.
I’m with the people who say that the verb “to remain” goes with “partnerships” rather than with “one”. Multiple partnerships remain among the top banking firms of the world.
Blaster Master and El Zagna’s initial thought are correct. It should be remains. The subject is “one”. From here:
I’d just write “one of the few true partnerships remaining…”
I am curious if Exapno or Hari can go into further detail because it sure looks to me like a bog-standard prepositional phrase and the correct verb is remains. The core sentence looks to me like “Company XYZ is one that remains among the firms.”
My initial thought was “remains”. But after reading the thread, I am wondering if you could use either, depending on whether you want the emphasis to be on Company XYZ or the few true partnerships. To me, “…Company XYZ is one of the few true partnerships that remain among the top banking firms of the world” emphasises the fact that there are only a few true partnerships remaining, while “…Company XYZ is one of the few true partnerships that remains among the top banking firms of the world” keeps the emphasis on the one company.
On re-reading the above paragraph, I’m inclined to think “remains” is more correct. Think of it this way; you could choose to add a comma thus: “…Company XYZ is one of the few true partnerships that remains, among the top banking firms of the world.” Using “remain” there would look/sound wrong to me.
On re-reading the above paragraph, I’m leaning even more towards “remains”.
Use the old remove the phrase and see what remains rule. (I see what I did there.)
Company X is one that remains in the world.
That’s grammatically correct but changes the meaning of the sentence. The intent of the sentence is talk about its status as a partnership, not the fact that it is a company.
“the few true partnerships that remain in the world” is therefore a connected set of words that must be correct and consistent within itself. The whole is being dropped into the prepositional clause.
Not a native English speaker, but:
Only a few true partnerships remain among the top banking firms of the world.
Company XYZ is one of them.
If it where only Company XYZ remaining, it would be:
Company XYZ is the only true partnerships that remains among the top banking firms of the world.
But there are more than one, therefore:
Company XYZ is one of the few true partnerships that remain among the top banking firms of the world.
Aside from my previous argument of removing the prepositional phrase, it’s very clear that the focus of the sentence is on Company XYZ. Consider, the sentence starts by saying “Founded in 1900”, which clearly modifies the company, it’s highly unlikely, and grammatically wonky, if it were intended to be modifying the various partnerships. Further, if you look at the rest of the sentence after the verb “among the best banking firms in the world”, again, it’s clearly about Company XYZ and not the partnerships. It just doesn’t make sense that we’d have two clear references to this bank, but then intend to emphasize the partnerships. As such, the subject of the verb “remain(s)” must be “one”, referencing the bank, and so it should be the singular conjugation.
The other trick is, just intuitively, speaking it out-loud, it just sounds wrong as “remain”, and it sounds horribly wrong saying it as “remain” with the prepositional phrase removed.
But the part you removed (“one of”) makes it a different (and nonsensical) sentence: “Company XYZ is the few true partnerships that remain…” Removing “of the few partnerships” makes the meaning confusing because you don’t know what “one” refers to, but it doesn’t change the sentence structure or subject.
The grammar guide I linked to above is clear: prepositional phrases which come between a subject and its verb do not change the number of the subject, which is “one”.
Written this way, “remain” is correct, because the subect is “few” (plural). But the original sentence uses “one” (singular) and therefore should use remains.
Good analysis there Blaster Master.
So what the OP really has is wording that tries to cram a few too many loose ends, details, and POV changes into a single sentence. With the result that the whole thing is muddy and we can’t even agree on what its main point is, nor how to slice up the clauses.
As the author of far too many similarly woolly sentences I’ve been working on shorter and more focused sentences. Ones with the ancillary details separated out where they don’t cause confusion.
The focus of the sentence may be Company XYZ, but the grammatical subject of the sentence is “the few true partnerships” - unless the author is trying to say that only Company XYZ and no others of “the few true partnerships” remain (etc., etc.). But if that’s what s/he is trying to say, why mention any others at all? By definition, Company XYZ would be unique in remaining a true partnership in the banking world.
The original also uses few. Company X is one of the few that remain. It works either way.
One is not always singular. You can create a variety of structures that use one and are plural.
Or here:
If your thinking is that one must always be followed by a singular, you will often get the wrong answer.
Exapno Mapcase, you’re right, it’s not as simple as I was arguing, that “one” is always the subject. Your link was enlightening for me.
But the last example in that seems to be closest to the original sentence, in that it is drawing attention to the uniqueness of of the one in the opening clause. From your example, this is correct: “I am one of those people who wants others to do what I think they should.” This is the exact structure of the sentence in question, “Company XYZ is one of the few true partnerships that remains…”
This. There are few true partnerships that *remain *among the top banking firms of the world. Company XYZ is one of them.