My student today asked me why we say "what is your name?" instead of "what are your name?".
I think we should say "what are your name?" since your/her takes "are"!
Please explain. Thank you in advance.
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2'your name' is singular, that's why is.– aarbeeCommented Feb 24, 2014 at 11:35
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1You could show your student what is the main word in the phrase "your name", and then ask her which one is correct *"What are the name?" or "What is the name (of yours)?"– Damkerng T.Commented Feb 24, 2014 at 11:43
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5 Answers
After thinking it through, I think the best response of the teacher (you!) for this particular student once he or she asked,
I think we should say "what are your name?" since your/her takes "are"!
is probably,
Because name takes "is"!
And if he or she looked confused, then you could add,
It's because name takes "is", so you should say, "What is your name?", or "What are your names?".
If your course is about conversational English and it doesn't emphasize grammar, perhaps this is the best way to go, in my opinion. There is no grammar terminology in the reply. (Please note that I avoided even using the word "either" intentionally.)
- My point is your reply should match your student. It's obvious that this student understands the word take, and he or she could formulate questions and at least understand simple answers, and yet still couldn't tell which word is the main word of a phrase, indicating his or her unclear understanding on common English sentence structures.
However, if your course also includes grammar, then you can take it as a good opportunity to discuss with your student(s) the concept of singular vs. plural in English, and the possessive form of you (which is your) and other pronouns, and how to find the main word in a noun phrase, and sentence structures in English, and so on.
answered Feb 25, 2014 at 12:55
since your/her takes are!!!!
I think this is an example of students having learned some "rules" by heart which aren't rules.
Your is the possessive of you, and you can be singular or plural.
The main point is that the subject of the verb is name, or if you address multiple people, names
If you are addressing a single person, you can say:
What is your name?
If you are asking a group of people to give their names, you ask:
What are your names?
But the conclusion that "your" takes "are" is absurdly and wrongly oversimplified.
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2I think this answer could be improved by clarifying that the subject of the sentence is "your name", and not "you", as mentioned in The Spooniest's answer. Alternatively, are there rules relating to copulas which may be relevant here? Commented Feb 24, 2014 at 14:15
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This is not the reason; as others have pointed out, the verb "is" goes with "name", not "your". The person's name is singular, so we use "is". So the word "name" should be the word in bold in your examples, not "your". Commented Feb 24, 2014 at 17:47
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This is wrong. Even when logically singular, "you"/"your" is grammatically plural and always, always takes "are". It's just that (as Chelonian points out) this case requires agreement with "name", not "your". Commented Dec 15, 2016 at 10:46
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@TimPederick Could you give me an example where a verb agrees with your, and not with the noun that your modifies? I agree that you can be seen as grammatically plural (although I doubt it is useful to confuse English learners with that, ELU would be a better platform for that discussion), but I don't see how your would ever be the subject of a verb. Grammatically it makes little sense to say that in your dog, dog is singular but gets modified by the grammatically plural, but semantically single possessive pronoun your, just for the sake of linguistic-historical nit-picking. Commented Dec 16, 2016 at 7:47
"Who are you?" would be correct, because "you" is the subject of the sentence. But "What is your name?" is different: "Name" is the subject of that sentence. It is modified by the adjective "your", but that doesn't change the subject.
Because of that, your student is correct. The sentence you mentioned is talking about the person's name, not the actual person. That's what makes the difference.
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In “who are you?”, isn't “you” is the object of the sentence, rather than the subject?– EmmetCommented Feb 24, 2014 at 14:25
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4@Emmet No. Who is a fronted interrogative phrase (from "Are you ___?"). You is the subject, and it has undergone subject-auxiliary inversion with are. And as you can see from "Who is he?" versus "Who are they?", are agrees with the inverted subject.– user230Commented Feb 24, 2014 at 14:49
No. "What IS your name?" is correct.
The subject of the sentence is not "you", but "name". "Name" is singular.
A common error in English is to confuse the subject of the sentence with modifiers on that subject when selecting the appropriate verb. For example: RIGHT: "The girl with the cats is here." WRONG: "The girl with the cats are here." "Cats" is plural, so if "cats" was the subject of the sentence, the correct verb would be "are". But "cats" is not the subject of the sentence. The subject is "girl", which is singular. So the correct verb is "is".
Similar thing here. "Your" is not the subject of the sentence. It is an adjective modifying "name".
This case is a little easier than my example because "your" is an adjective, not a noun, and so can never be the subject of a sentence. (Unless you are talking about the word itself.) You might say "You are ...", but you would never say "Your are ...". It must always be "Your X is/are ...", where X is a noun. (Or some more complex sentence, of course.)
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To expand on this a bit: "the girl with the cats that are here" and "the girl with the cats who is here" are both correct. In the first case, here refers to the cats, in the second to the girl.– BobRodesCommented Feb 24, 2014 at 16:54
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@BobRodes True, but neither of those is a complete sentence. But yes, you could say, "The girl with the cats who are here is Irish", meaning that the cats are here and the girl is Irish. Note if it was only one cat the sentence becomes ambiguous: "The girl with the cat who is here is Irish." Is the girl here, or is the cat here? Changing it to "The girl who is here with the cat is Irish" may change the meaning, as that indicates that both she and the cat are here, which may not be what was intended.– JayCommented Feb 24, 2014 at 17:11
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Yes, they were not intended to be examples of complete sentences, rather of correct usage, which as we both agree they are. Note that if it were only one cat the sentence would become ambiguous only to those who refer to a cat as a "who" rather than as a "that"; in other words, the sort of person who refers to himself as "Daddy" when addressing his cat. I don't mean to suggest that you do this, and if you do, of course you are free to do so. However, since I don't hold with personification of animals (I'm sure they don't like it), I treat such as incorrect. :)– BobRodesCommented Feb 24, 2014 at 20:16
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Well, yeah, the who/that distinction might help in this example. But I can easily frame examples where that doesn't help, like, "The girl with the brother who is here is ..." And BTW, I do not have any pets, and if I did, I can't imagine referring to myself as their "daddy". If an animal isn't edible, I'm not really interested in it.– JayCommented Feb 25, 2014 at 17:57
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<But I can easily frame examples... Well, so can I! LOL This just isn't one of them. So yes, I was taking advantage of the who/that distinction as you aptly put it. And clearly we are on the same page with the personification of animals thing. I wouldn't carry a Chihuahua around wherever I went and knit sweaters for it either. But some folks do, and I'm sure they have their reasons.– BobRodesCommented Feb 26, 2014 at 14:07
I think it is correct to ask "What is your name?", and also correct to ask "What are your names?", depending on the way you are using it.
If you are asked what is your name, you are expected to reply with your name and your surname e.g Adelaja Adebisi, which is a compound name making it singular. On the other hand, if asked what are your names, and you give your names as Adelaja Adebisi Tolulope, then, the Tolulope added to it makes it plural so it is correct.
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@Chenmunka -- Most of the other answers assume that each person has one name (perhaps with multiple words). This answer correctly notes that one person can have multiple names, such as a first name, a middle name, a family name, a nickname, an alias, a stage name, a pen name, a nom de guerre, a hereditary title, et cetera.– JasperCommented Jan 19, 2015 at 20:42
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1I'd quibble that while people often have first, middle, and last name, in English we do not normally refer to these as "your three names" but rather as "the three parts of your name". Someone will say, "My name is Robert Francis Doolittle", not "My names are Robert, Francis, and Doolittle." That said, it IS possible for someone to have more than one name, in the sense that he might have aliases. Someone could say, "My real name is Bob Smith but on my published books I use the pen name Frederick Jones". Or "My given name is Bob Smith" ...– JayCommented Jan 19, 2015 at 22:42
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1... but since I'm running from the police, I go by Jerry Adler." So the basic point of the post is valid.– JayCommented Jan 19, 2015 at 22:42