Choose the most suitable option to replace the underlined part of the sentence. If the sentence is already correct, select 'No substitution required'.
Neither the manager nor the employees has noticed the technical fault.
Show answer & explanation
Correct answer: A
Explanation
Correct Answer:-
have noticed
Explanation:-
The sentence tests the rule of subject-verb agreement when using correlative conjunctions like "neither... nor..." or "either... or...".
When two subjects are connected by "neither... nor...", the verb must agree in number with the subject that is closest to it. This is known as the rule of proximity. In this sentence, the two subjects are "the manager" (singular) and "the employees" (plural). The subject closest to the verb is "the employees", which is plural. Therefore, the singular auxiliary verb "has" must be replaced with the plural auxiliary verb "have".
was noticing is incorrect because "was" is singular, which violates the proximity rule, and the past continuous tense does not fit the context of an action that should have been completed.
had noticed changes the tense to the past perfect without any contextual requirement or second past action to justify the shift.
No substitution required is incorrect because the original sentence contains a clear subject-verb agreement error.
Key Points
Core Definition The proximity rule dictates that when compound subjects are joined by correlative conjunctions like "neither... nor...", the verb takes its singular or plural form based entirely on the noun phrase closest to it.
Grammatical Role Aligning auxiliary verbs accurately with the nearest subject component to maintain proper syntax in complex sentence structures.