[Grammar] none of us has completed our

[Oceanlike]

I don't know whether there is a mistake in using "has completed" in this sentence I'm writing:

- None of us has completed our assignments.

Outside of the prepositional phrase, "of us", I use "None" to indicate a singular subject. However, when I use "our" assignments, does it affect the verb in front?

 

[GoesStation]

Yes, it does. Use "have".

 

[TheParser]

NOT A TEACHER

Oceanlike, this is the rule that my teachers taught me.

Consider "none" to mean "not any": "None of the students have ever visited Alaska."

If you want to emphasize "not one," just say it: "Not one of the students has been absent this entire school term."

 

[Oceanlike]

NOT A TEACHER

Consider "none" to mean "not any": "None of the students have ever visited Alaska."

If I'm saying "none" or "not any", how is it that the verb is not "has"?
- None of the students has ever visited Alaska. (ie. Not one = singular)

Why does the verb follow "students"?

 

[GoesStation]

Some people consider none (the subject of the verb) to be equivalent to not one, and therefore feel that it should take a singular verb.
Others feel that none can be taken as equivalent to all of the students not having done something. and therefore feel it should take a plural verb.

And some, including Shakespeare and the translators of the King James Bible, use it both ways. (Both of those writers usually treated none as singular but made multiple exceptions.)

 

[jutfrank]

A native speaker would be very unlikely to use a singular has in this sentence. The use of both our and assignments is very strong evidence that the speaker is thinking of a group of students, so a plural verb agreement follows. As Piscean points out, an equivalent thought could be expressed (unnaturally) as: All of us have not finished our assignments.