Collective nouns and agreement
Collective nouns are singular but refer to a group of people or things, e.g.
multitud‘crowd’, mayoría‘majority’, gente‘people’, docena‘dozen’, mitad
‘half’. When used on their own in Spanish, a verb in close proximity is
usually singular (although it may be plural in English):La mayoría no protestó.
The majority did not protest.
El gobierno no ha decidido.
The government has/have not decided.When joined to a following plural noun by de, or when the verb is distant
from the noun, the safest option for learners is to use a plural verb:
La mayoría de las casas son viejas.
The majority of the houses are old.
La gente se calló un momento al pasar el ataúd, luego
siguieron charlando.
People stopped for a moment as the coffin passed, then they
continued chattering.Note: Usage by native speakers is not as clear-cut as the above guidance, and may
be governed by factors such as consideration of whether it is logical to think of the
group collectively (singular verb), or its parts individually (plural verb): más de la
mitad son refugiados‘more than half are refugees’.2.3^1111
2 3 4 5 6 7 8 91011
1
12111
3 4 5 6 7 8 9
20111
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9
30111
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9
40
41111
2
Nouns