Step 1: Understanding the Concept:
This question addresses a specific and often confusing rule of "Subject-Verb Agreement" involving correlative conjunctions.
The conjunctions are "Neither... nor" and "Either... or."
The rule states: When two subjects are joined by 'neither... nor' or 'either... or,' the verb must agree in number (singular or plural) with the subject closest to it. This is known as the "Rule of Proximity."
Step 2: Detailed Explanation:
Let's apply the Rule of Proximity to the given sentence.
1. Identifying the Subjects:
Subject 1: "The manager" (Singular)
Subject 2: "The employees" (Plural)
2. Applying the Proximity Rule:
The blank space for the verb is positioned immediately after "the employees."
Therefore, the verb must agree with "the employees," which is a plural noun.
3. Evaluating the Verb Options:
(C) were: This is the plural past tense of the verb 'to be.' Since "employees" is plural, "were" is a perfect grammatical match. The sentence implies a past event where information was (or wasn't) shared.
(A) was: This is singular. If the sentence had been "Neither the employees nor the manager was informed," this would be correct. But in the current order, it is wrong.
(B) is: This is singular present tense. Incorrect for the same reason as 'was.'
(D) has been: This is singular present perfect. For a plural subject, the form should have been "have been."
4. Sentence Reconstruction:
"Neither the manager nor the employees were informed..."
This sounds correct because the ear naturally links the verb to the word right before it.
Step 3: Final Answer:
Based on the Rule of Proximity, the verb must agree with the plural subject "employees." Therefore, the plural verb "were" is correct. Hence, Option (C) is the correct answer.