the verb should be plural because it relates to the men who live here, of whom the uncle is one.

For me, one of the men -> singular
Only one of the people -> I'm not as sure about this one, but maybe plural.

Maybe it has something to do with whether the speaker is thinking about the one or about the group. I'm thinking about my uncle (reference to the men over there is merely incidental) -> singular. Lots of people work there -> plural. Amazing that only one of them is competent -> singular.

I think you're right and 'lives' is just a mistake.

It's an odd sentence anyway; what context do we picture, someone walking or driving by a little group of houses 'over there' -- across the creek, the highway, the fence? With a group of men standing outside who live in them? Or a context like working for an oil company in Saudi Arabia or Africa, where some of the men live 'over there' and some just work 'over there'?

A lot of ESL websites are pretty cheesy, essentially just advertising and cookie bait. In the past, people have linked to quite a few dubious ones in the forum, some evidently not even written by native speakers. One I remember that's good is OWL, from some university, I think Purdue.

That said, sentences with 'one of the [plural noun]' are tricky. I suspect that there are others where I would just sort of conflate the two and take the whole phrase as referring to the plural noun, when it's not clear or important whether the reference is to one or all.

Strictly speaking, if the clause refers to 'one,' isn't it then nondefining and shouldn't it be set off by commas?

We see a group of men clearing brush. One of the men, who lives over there on the far side of the field, puts down his chainsaw and invites us to come over for a drink.

We see a group of men playing football. The men who live over there by the train tracks are wearing white T-shirts, and the men who live here on our street are wearing blue T-shirts.

One of the men who lives over there is my uncle.

One of the men who live over there is my uncle.


men, plural subject, plural verb: live; one of singular subject, hence, is

2nd sentence is OK,

I'd say

I agree with dude. For me, the first sentence is not correct, the second is.

The subject is "one of the men/people" but the grammatical antecedent is "one" and demands the singular. The part "of the people" defines "one". If you substitute a personal pronoun you can easily see that "men" or "people" are not the subject: "One of them", not one of they. "Men" and "people" are in the objective case and can't be the subject. The verb in the main clause must therefore be singular, and it is (in both instances): One of the men IS my uncle; only one of the people IS qualified.

The relative clause, however, is a restrictive or defining relative clause (as indicated by the omission of the comma) and restricts the number of people or men. Here, the relative clause defines a plural noun and the verb of the relative clause should therefore agree: Not all people but only those people who work in the company; only those men who live over there.

You can parse the sentences as follows:
[One sg. (of the men pl. who live over there] = subj. is sg. my uncle.
Same thing with the second sentence.

If the relative clause were a non-defining relative clause, however, this could change.

"Non-defining relative clauses are placed after nouns which are definite already." (Thomson/Martinet, Practical English Grammar)

There are, say, eight men who live in Littleville (a definition that is not in the sentence itself but may be supplied by the context). One of the men, who lives around the corner, is my uncle.

In this case the relative clause refers to the (singular) subject, "one", and the verb of the relative clause has to agree with the singular.

With a non-defining relative clause, my uncle is one of several men of an otherwise unspecified group and he is one (singular) who happens to live over there. With a defining relative clause, my uncle is one of a specified group of men who all (plural) "live over there".

Both your examples are defining relative clauses (there's no comma). The relative clause defines "people" or "men" and the verb has to agree with the noun which is defined. That's why the first sentence is incorrect. If it read
One of the men, who lives over there, is my uncle 
it would be correct but would have a different meaning.


For all I know, as a non-native speaker :-)

EDIT: sorry, took too long. Hm was quicker - Agree with #3 and 4.

All this logical and rule-based analysis by German speakers is fine as far as it goes, which isn't necessarily far enough to answer actual usage questions. However, it might be the case that AE comes closer to following this logic than does BE, where it is even clearer that the concept of singular or plural can override strict grammar. I notice it every time I read that the government have decided something (actually, have taken a decision, but that's another matter).

There are certainly expressions of quantity that are treated as plural in English but not in German, though there's no AE/BE difference I'm aware of on that point.

related discussion: number of + Singular or Plural?

That doesn't override grammar, it is grammar; it's just that the grammar is different in the two languages, with English following the underlying concept and German following the surface structure.

In any case, 'one' isn't one of those expressions of quantity, because it's, well, one, not a group.

However, it's probably true that we don't think too much about it when we speak, and that's why we have to do sort of a double-take with sentences like the first one in the original post. That inattention might indeed be more common in AE, I'm not sure; I have the feeling I might even do it in a slightly different context, I just can't think of a more plausible example right now.

I agree with hm et al.: it should be "live" because it is the men who live over there, and my uncle is one of them.

However, I doubt I would have noticed it if I heard it - or even if I read it - because my uncle also lives over there so the agreement with the wrong noun isn't 'contradictory' (for want of a better word).

There are similar constructions that cause problems where an 'illogical' agreement might be more accepted (at least in informal style). I am thinking of constructions like "these kind of people".