Questions & Answers about هذا فريق الزملاء الذين يعملون هنا.
Where is the word is in this sentence?
It is not stated explicitly. In Arabic, present-tense sentences of the type X is Y often have no written or spoken verb to be.
So:
- هذا = this
- فريق الزملاء الذين يعملون هنا = the noun phrase that tells you what this is
In other words, Arabic simply says the equivalent of this, the team of the colleagues who work here, and English adds is when translating.
Why is the sentence using هذا and not هؤلاء, even though it is talking about several colleagues?
Because هذا agrees with the grammatical head noun, which is فريق.
- فريق means team
- فريق is grammatically singular masculine
- so the demonstrative is هذا = this
Arabic is not pointing to the individual colleagues directly here. It is pointing to the team as one unit.
So the logic is:
- this team
- not these colleagues
Why is فريق singular if the meaning includes many people?
Because فريق is a collective noun, like in English.