According to scientists at the Universit

[shankar245]

According to scientists at the University of California, the pattern of changes that have occurred in human DNA over the millennia indicate the possibility that everyone alive today might be descended from a single female ancestor who lived in Africa sometime between 140,000 and 280,000 years ago.


I was just doing this Subject Verb Agreement Exercise and was confused over this bold part as to whether the subject is the pattern or the highlighted part.



Also can You please clarify the usage of "that" as part of the subject. I mean when do we consider the parts after that as a subject.Is it solely based on the meaning?



Thanks

[muralidharin]

that' without a comma - they must modify the immediately preceding noun.

[harish2311]

the subject here is "the changes"
since that is a plural subject, we the changes that have occured

[jnelson0612]

that' without a comma - they must modify the immediately preceding noun.

Correct! "that have . . . . " is modifying "changes". The subject here is "pattern" and everything else behind "pattern" in bold is modifying "pattern".

[dhingra_gaurav007]

that' without a comma - they must modify the immediately preceding noun.

Correct! "that have . . . . " is modifying "changes". The subject here is "pattern" and everything else behind "pattern" in bold is modifying "pattern".

Hi Jnelson..

If Pattern is the subject here then isnt there a S-V disagreement.

Pattern is singular..then the verb used should be Indicates not indicate.

Please correct me if i am missing something.

[jnelson0612]

that' without a comma - they must modify the immediately preceding noun.

Correct! "that have . . . . " is modifying "changes". The subject here is "pattern" and everything else behind "pattern" in bold is modifying "pattern".

Hi Jnelson..

If Pattern is the subject here then isnt there a S-V disagreement.

Pattern is singular..then the verb used should be Indicates not indicate.

Please correct me if i am missing something.

shankar, I just googled and found this problem on the internet. The subject is indeed "pattern"; in the example I found the verb "indicate" is part of the answer choices. The correct answer uses the singular verb "indicates". The sentence you found is incorrectly bolded; "pattern of changes" should not be bolded and "indicate" should be bolded. Hope this helps!