Question

a number of my friends___(love/loves) riding bicycles,but neither my brother nor my sister ____(own/owns) a bicycle​

Answer 1

A number of my friends (love ) riding bicycles, but neither my brother nor my sister (owns) a bicycle.

hope it helps

Answer 2

The correct form of words to be filled are as below.

• "A number of my friends love riding bicycles,..." We use the plural form 'love' here as we are referring to many people. This also agrees with the subject 'bicycles' which is in plural.
• "...but neither my brother nor my sister owns a bicycle." Here we use the singular form of the word 'own' although we are talking about two people. This is because of the conjunction used- 'neither....nor'.
• When used in a sentence, this conjunction talks about two different objects, individually. Hence, in this sentence we are referring to both the brother and the sister separately by using a singular form of the verb.