Automattic / Automattic/harper
Missed Subject-Verb Agreement (Notional Agreement with Time Units)
- Dominant language
- Rust
- Stars
- 15.4k
- Forks
- 627
- Avg merge
- 1d 15h
- Merged PRs (30d)
- 106
Description
I noticed a missed subject-verb agreement error with units of time acting as a singular block.
Example text:
"33 years sound like a career politician from the establishment"
Expected behaviour:
The grammar checker should flag "sound" and suggest "sounds".
Linguistic context:
While "33 years" is grammatically plural, units of time, money, and distance use notional agreement. They represent a single collective block of time and require a singular verb. The software currently fails to treat these quantified plural time phrases as singular subjects.
(Disclaimer: I rewrote my original issue with an AI that knew all the correct terms and how to explain what I spotted with my intuition but didn't know all the technicalities to fully describe.)
Contributor guide
Research direction
No files or tests are named. Start by locating the subject-verb agreement rule and its existing tests, then reproduce the example “33 years sound like a career politician from the establishment.” Done means the checker flags “sound,” suggests “sounds,” and preserves existing agreement behavior.
Written by the indexing model from the issue text.
Assessment
- Tech stack
- rust
- Domain
- devtools
- Issue type
- Bug
- Difficulty
- 3/5
- Estimated time
- 1-2 days
- Activity status
- Quiet
- Clarity
- Mostly clear
- Newbie friendliness
- 62/100