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  1. My fish's native habitat is rice fields.

  2. My fish's native habitat are rice fields.

I'm pretty sure the first is correct, since 'is' modifies 'habitat,' but it still sounds weird...

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Just to be picky about terminology, is agrees with habitat. – Kosmonaut Mar 24 '11 at 15:51
Heh, thanks. No better place than on an English Q&A site... – emragins Mar 24 '11 at 16:05
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Wait, do certain fish actually live in rice fields?! :) – Jimi Oke Mar 24 '11 at 16:26
@Jimi, Yep. petfish.net/kb/entry/339. Got one the other day and naturally follows lots of research. – emragins Mar 24 '11 at 17:08

1 Answer

up vote 7 down vote accepted

It may sound weird, but it is still correct. Singular nouns take singular verbs. In this case, the singular noun is habitat. Thus, is is the correct form of the verb to be in this case.

My fish's native habitat is rice fields.

To make it sound more natural, you could reverse the order thus:

Rice fields are my fish's native habitat.

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Right, the second version would be natural. Note that adding a bit more detail with an article also solves the problem: "My fish's native habitat is the rice fields of Viet Nam." – The Raven Mar 24 '11 at 17:28
It sounds weirder still when you use a first-person pronoun as the predicate nominative and modify a singular subject with a prepositional phrase ending in a plural: The oldest of my siblings is I. Or perhaps A family of happy people is we. Actually, I'm not sure about that one. – JCooper Mar 24 '11 at 17:37
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@JCooper For some reason those aren't so weird sounding to me. I guess it has to do with a couple years of grammar intense German. It's also easier because those sentences can be reversed and are clearly correct, and we can also get into Yoda-speak: The oldest of my siblings, I am. – emragins Mar 25 '11 at 16:18
Does it mean that when using is/are, it is simply the first subject that defines the number? (Or is the second "subject" not a subject, but an object?) – arik-so Jun 25 '12 at 8:10
@arik-so: Indeed, it is the subject that determines the verb form you use. It does not matter whether the object is singular or plural. – Jimi Oke Jul 7 '12 at 11:41

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