When discussing statistics, survey results, and demographics, you will often use collective nouns like većina (majority) or skupina (group) followed by a noun in the genitive plural (e.g., "the majority of respondents").
| respondent | ispitanik |
Agreement with "većina" and "manjina"
Nouns like većina (majority) and manjina (minority) are grammatically feminine singular. When they are followed by a genitive plural noun, the verb can agree with the subject in two different ways.
The first way is syntactic agreement: the verb simply matches the grammatical gender and number of the collective noun itself (feminine singular).
| In January, the majority of respondents approved of that research. | U siječnju je većina ispitanika odobravala to istraživanje. |
| Only a significant minority of consumers followed that trend. | Samo značajna manjina potrošača je pratila taj trend. |
The second way is semantic agreement: the verb reflects the plural meaning of the group of people, taking the plural form (usually masculine plural, as it acts as the default for mixed groups).
| A significant majority of respondents approved of this new trend. | Značajna većina ispitanika su odobravali ovaj novi trend. |
| The majority of respondents started reading about that problem in February. | Većina ispitanika su počeli čitati o tom problemu u veljači. |
Agreement with "mnoštvo", "skupina", "hrpa", and "niz"
Other nouns that indicate a multitude or a specific group generally stick to strict syntactic agreement. The verb must match the gender and number of the collective noun, ignoring the genitive plural noun that comes after it.
- mnoštvo (multitude): neuter singular
- skupina (group) and hrpa (bunch): feminine singular
- niz (series): masculine singular
Notice how the past tense verbs in the following examples perfectly match the gender of the collective noun, regardless of who makes up the group:
| In June, a multitude of consumers declared themselves regarding that problem. | U lipnju se mnoštvo potrošača izjasnilo o tom problemu. |
| A bunch of guests declared that they want better food. | Hrpa gostiju izjavila je da želi bolju hranu. |
| A whole series of female experts confirmed that the statistics is correct. | Cijeli niz stručnjakinja je potvrdio da je statistika točna. |