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Which sentence is correct?
She, as well as her parents, love Dwayne dearly.
She, as well as her parents, loves Dwayne dearly.
I thought it would be love as in “they love him dearly”. But MS Word editor says it’s loves, as it is referring to the she in the statement. But MS Word editor is far from perfect.
When a sentence contains secondary clauses or phrases, that portion is ignored when determining subject/ verb agreement. Scroll to item 17.5f in this guide for a reference.
In your case, the phrase "as well as her parents" forms such secondary item, and if we imagine deleting it:
She loves Dwayne dearly.
Then we clearly need the singular form of the verb, loves. This must remain true even when we add the phrase back in.
If you really want to remove ambiguity, you could completely rephrase your idea and make the parents part of the subject:
She and her parents all love Dwayne dearly.
The correct would be 'loves' because the "as well as her parents" is not subjected to the rules of the original context.
In essence, the sentence is saying "She loves Dwayne dearly." This is evident with the use of commas around the excerpt "as well as her parents".
Consider the "as well as her parents" to be inside brackets.
As well as is a conjunction and does not mean AND.
AS WELL AS does not make the subject plural
John, as well as Mary, want to drop the course. [incorrect]
the verb want must agree with the noun preceding as well as in this case.
John, as well as Mary, wants to drop the course. [correct]
In other words, when we want to use as well as as a part of the subject, the verb must agree with the noun before as well as.
It could be (and has been) argued that it is actually irrelevant whether the parenthetical element is set off by commas or not.
