cleft sentences

[veggie]

can you put both singular and plural here?

What i look forward to is/are () holidays.

thx

[KenWalsh]

You'll hear both used. Since you are using a verb of 'to be', the sentence can be reversed to find the correct usage (since 'what' carries no number):

Holidays are what I look forward to.

You'll notice that this sentence may still seem awkward. In writing, it would be clearer to express your thought as:

I look forward to holidays.

Since this slightly changes your emphasis, you may wish to try:

What I look forward to is the arrival of holidays.

[par]

What Ken proposes is an elegant way to sidestep the issue.
Grammar insists on the subject-verb agreement; the verb-complement agreement is not a grammatical must.

The topic of this thread is cleft sentences.
Here the subject is "the topic of this thread," and it is singular.

Cleft sentences are the topic of this thread.
Here the plural subject is "cleft sentences."
"Cleft sentences"are plural.

To me, "what" in "what I look forward to" is singular.
"What I look forward to is holidays" would be my choice.

[KenWalsh]

I hope that you would agree that

"What I look forward to is holidays and my birthday."

is an awkward construction and would better be understood as

"What I look forward to are holidays and my birthday."

In Par's interpretation, does the "what" now become a plural pronoun?

What if the sentence was written as

"What I look forward to is/are holidays and train trips."

Should "is" or "are" be chosen?

[par]

The original question is straightforward. The complement, although grammatically plural, is notionally singular. Just imagine "vacation" instead of "holidays." That's what the word "holidays" means.

If in doubt about the notional number, one can use the old trick known since Fowler's days:
Isn't "the thing that I look forward to is holidays" better than "the things that I look forward to are holidays?"

If still not convinced, one can refer to W. Follet's "Modern English Usage":

"ut otherwise the noun that precedes the copulative verb is its subject, and the noun that follows belongs to the predicate. We cannot reverse the two by afterthought."

Follet goes on to say,

"What" can be singular or plural. It can mean those which as well as that which. But it has this insistent peculiarity: if meant plurally, it has to be set up as plural to begin with."

and gives examples:

"We can say, "He well understood what were the requirements of politeness," but if we say "He well understood what politeness required," the what is incurably singular. This reminder is made necessary by these typical examples of the verb corrupted by a plural predicate:
What to watch for are such things as dry, sandy layers or hardpan / What Jane is clutching to her bosom are four kittens / What they saw were the white sand cliffs on the eastern coast of…Guanahani / What these gentlemen need are some new moral values."

About style:

"So much for the question of grammar. There remains a question of style. In this struggle against a plain grammatical requirement there is clearly at work a feeling that it is impossible to be happy with the combination of a singular subject and a plural predicate complement. If a writer is made uneasy by the disparity in number, if he simply cannot feel right with What these gentlemen need is new moral values, correct though it be, he would do well to humor his feeling. No one has to write a construction and like it just because it is demonstrably correct..."

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In other cases, the uneasy type can run "the-thing(s)-that test" to clarify the notional number of the complement and make decisions accordingly.

You can also see Burchfield's "Fowler's Modern English Usage (1998)", "Merriam Webster's Dictionary of English Usage(1994)", or many others.

[Ken Walsh]

Thanks for the detailed explanation. I knew what this question needed was explanations from English scholars.

[Andrzej]

So, it's over? It was just getting interesting
Thanks to both of you. I would just like to add, that both Polish and English (and so many other languages) are full of things that are often debatable. The classic example would be: "My father and I", "my father and me", and then some people saying "it's for you and she", whereas others will say "it's for you and her".
Some problems are easy to detect and explain, others more complex. Anyway, thank you Ken and Par for allowing the Clickandbiters to learn something new again.
We would love to find out more about you, Par.

[anglisz]

oh men, coming back to question what is correct?
is or are?
In some grammar book i read :What i like is apples. 'Are' is not ever acceptable.