tough Singular/Plural

[dps]

Declining values for X was/were..

Is subject Declining values (singular) or declining is acting as adjective for values and hence, declining values (plural)?

What's the best way to make this distinction?

[abhi]

You are correct in pointing that "declining" act as an adjective here and the fancy name for these adjective is participle.

Here, most probably, it is used as an adjective..cant think of any example which can use "declining values" as a process...the correct example would be "decline of the values suggests....".

Hope that helps!!

[JonathanSchneider]

The only way that "declining values" could be singular is if it could be considered a singular entity. Which it cannot. This must be plural.

There are some cases where plural-looking things are singular. Take, for instance, "making friends is fun." Here the whole phrase "making friends" is the subject. In the example you provided above, however, the word "declining" simply modifies the values.