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In the following sentence:

One out of ten people speaks (English) as their mother tongue

Is "one out of ten" considered singular, or should speaks be changed to speak?

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  • One is one. So singular
    – mplungjan
    Commented Jan 8, 2014 at 12:27
  • Except notional agreement. So plural.
    – RegDwigнt
    Commented Jan 8, 2014 at 13:15

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I would say it is definitely singular. If you think about it, 'one' is the subject of the sentence, whilst 'out of ten people' is a subordinate clause and could be separated by commas as in:

'One, out of ten people, speaks English'. 'Two, out of ten people, hate broccoli'.

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  • Nine point eight out of ten people hate Brussels sprouts. ;-) — ‘Out of ten people’ isn’t a subordinate clause, though—it’s not a clause at all. Truth be told, I’m not sure exactly how to categorize it. ‘Adjunct’ would probably be my best guess, but I’m sure we have some syntacticians here who’ll have a more definite answer.
    – Janus Bahs Jacquet
    Commented Jan 8, 2014 at 12:57
  • It’s not a subordinate clause.
    – Philippe-André Lorin
    Commented Mar 4, 2021 at 20:19
  • @Philippe-AndréLorin Jack, out of all the children, is good at maths seems quite the same in structure as One, out of ten, eats cabbage. Are you saying that "out of all the children" is not a subordinate clause?
    – WS2
    Commented Mar 5, 2021 at 7:21
  • @WS2 Yes. I see no predicate here.
    – Philippe-André Lorin
    Commented Mar 6, 2021 at 8:23

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