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Is the expression

All women who are mothers of daughters are here.

correct? I mean every woman who has at least one daughter is here.

user150248
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1 Answers1

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All women who are mothers of daughters are here.

It is correct, but it's a bit silly. By definition, a woman who has a daughter is a mother, so instead, you can say

All women who have a daughter are here

It's still not the most natural way of saying this, but you commented that you should start your sentence with "All women who..." so I assume it's a "fill in the blanks" exercise.

I just noticed that before the edit, you said "mothers for daughters" which means something entirely different. A mother of someone is, biologically (or legally) the parent of said person. You can however be a mother for someone, without any biological or legal connection. For example, you can say the nanny was like a mother for the kids.

With regard to the question in the comments: is it "daughter" or "daughters"? There seems to be no strict rule here; see for example the answers to this question. I will motivate either option below.

  • Plural (daughters). This follows the general rule: the subject and object have to agree. Indeed, each woman will have their own daughter, which means that more than one daughter is present.
  • Singular (daughter). The above could be interpreted as "all woman who have more than one daughter". By using the singular form, I emphasise that women who only have a single daughter are also present.

The singular form could in theory be misread as "there was a multitude of polygamous women, who all shared legal parenthood of a single daughter". This may be culture-specific, but most people will not assume this, while some people may assume that parents of a single daughter are excluded from the group. Hence, I chose the singular form.

Sanchises
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  • Thank you for your answer. But I wonder why you use “a daughter” in your sentence when the subject is “all women”? It seems to be non-consistent. – user150248 Feb 05 '19 at 14:26
  • Is it correct to say “All women who has a daughter are here?” – user150248 Feb 05 '19 at 14:37
  • @user150248 See the edit. The verb, in any case, has to agree with the subject, not the object. "All women who has..." is definitely wrong. – Sanchises Feb 05 '19 at 14:44