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I am having troubles understanding whether I should add an "S" at the end of a verb or not.

The sentence is: "We are a human company that, through design and engineering, develop automation solutions..."

Should the verb Develop have an "S" added at the end? If the personal pronoun that acts upon the verb is a Third-person-singular, it should, otherwise it shouldn't. However I'm having trouble understanding if the personal pronoun acting upon the verb "develop" is We from "We are a human company" or the inferred it from "a company".

The company (it) > develops solutions...

We > develop solutions...

Which one would be the correct interpretation? Or maybe the sentence should be rewritten to avoid this?

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    Does this answer your question? Its or Their to refer to a company? Also Is a company e.g. Pfizer, singular or plural?
    – FumbleFingers
    Commented Mar 11, 2020 at 17:54
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    I believe Brits are more "flexible" than Americans in this area (it's not just a matter of saying that British companies / couples / governments / etc. are singular, whereas to Americans they're plural). Brits vary the plurality according to context, and in this case they'll tend to go with the plural verb develop simply because the sentence started with plural We are...
    – FumbleFingers
    Commented Mar 11, 2020 at 18:01
  • @FumbleFingers-Reinstate-Monica I agree. After reviewing the sentence, it became clear that the subject is indeed "We", not "The Company", and thus, the correct use of the verb is "develop". We (the people that collectively make up the company) develop solutions [...]
    – thomas01f
    Commented Mar 11, 2020 at 18:49
  • If that "rationale" makes sense to you then fine. But from my perspective as a Brit there is no "right" answer here, and thus no bulletproof argument as to why it's the right answer.
    – FumbleFingers
    Commented Mar 12, 2020 at 13:18
  • ...but consider this NGram showing that the most common words after are a species that are the singular verb forms has and is...
    – FumbleFingers
    Commented Mar 12, 2020 at 13:20

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"We" already has a finite verb: "are". So, what does "develop" belong to? "We" or "a human company"? There are two clauses here, an independent one: "We are a human company" and a dependent one: "that, through design and engineering, develop automation solutions". We can remove the adjectives and the adverbial phrase to simplify the grammar without changing the problem: "We are a company that develop solutions".

So, is it "We [are a company that] develop solutions" or "We are [a company that develop solutions]"? Since we can remove the dependent clause leaving a grammatical sentence: "We are a company", we can say that "that" attaches "develop" to "a company", not "we".

The next question is whether singular "company" takes a singular or plural verb. As the linked question Its or Their to refer to a company? shows, it is sometimes acceptable to use a plural verb (if you consider a company to be the individuals rather than a single entity). Generally speaking, American English will use a singular verb, while British English will use either.

So, "We are a human company that, through design and engineering, develops automation solutions" is correct in both American and British English, and the plural conjugation "develop" is acceptable in British English too.

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  • Very interesting explanation. It just felt awkward to use either because of the phrasing, I was considering changing the sentence all together to avoid such issue. However, this explanation gives me a lot of confidence regarding the proper use of the word. Thanks.
    – thomas01f
    Commented Mar 11, 2020 at 21:51
  • Excellent answer. Now if you could explain how a "human company" differs from a regular company, I'd be grateful ;)
    – Kevin
    Commented Mar 11, 2020 at 21:58
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    @Kevin "if you have a different question, use the 'Ask Question' button." ;-)
    – CJ Dennis
    Commented Mar 11, 2020 at 21:59

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