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This sentence can be found in a few places online (e.g. here):

这些书仍然是我最珍贵的财产之一。
These books are still among my most treasured possessions.

YouDao says this sentence came from 《柯林斯英汉双解大词典》 although I didn't find it here.

I feel like this sentences has a grammar error, since 这些 implies more than one, whereas 之一 implies exactly one, an apparent contradiction. However, there are occasional instances where Chinese is a bit illogical (e.g. 好容易 = 好不容易), so maybe I'm being too pedantic.

Question: Is 这些书仍然是我最珍贵的财产之一 considered a faulty sentence because of 这些……是……之一?

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  • Although I'm against the use of 之一, its use here is not grammatically faulty. Here, 之一 means one of my valuable possessions. It doesn't refer to books.
    – joehua
    Commented Mar 13 at 10:57
  • Yes, the speaker has many treasured possessions, and these books are one amongst them. Commented Mar 13 at 13:25
  • Something like all the people in a small state can have only one vote for electing the president. Commented Mar 15 at 13:17

2 Answers 2

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这些书仍然是我最珍贵的财产之一

It is not a faulty sentence

"The books" belong to a single collection containing many items. Likewise, if I own three cars, I can say that these cars are part of my most prized possessions (all three cars are part of a collection)

之一 (one of) --> 的一部分 (a part of)

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No, the sentence is fine. I think we do the same in English.

The translation of '之一' with 'among' is idiomatic.

一个15岁的女孩是受伤人员之一。
A fifteen year old girl was among the injured.
A fifteen year old girl was one of the injured.

my possessions = [my cat, my books, my paintings, my Chinese scrolls]

I understand 这些书 as logically a group, 1 group of things. I see no reason to insist that a possession must be a singular object.

这些书仍然是我最珍贵的财产之一。
These books [plural] are still one [1 possession] of my most precious possessions.

Alternatives:
*Each of these books is still one of my most precious possessions.??
*Each of these books is still among my most precious possessions.??

Why not group all the books if they have common element, i.e. being a precious possession?

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