Subject Verb Agreement

1
Subject Verb Agreement

• The subject and the verb have to agree, or match,
  in number.A singular noun must go with the
  singular form of a verb, and plural noun must go
  with the plural form of the verb
• Duh!

2
Watch Your Distance

• Subject-verb agreement can be tricky when the
  subject and verb are not next to each other.
  Consider this sentence The robot, which is
  made of many parts, break often.Its tempting
  to make the verb agree with the closest noun,
  parts. After all, the phrase parts break often
  sounds right. However, if you take away the extra
  phrase inside the commas, the sentence says The
  robot break often.Thats not right. The verb
  has to agree with the subject, robot.The
  corrected sentence reads The robot, which is
  made of many parts, breaks often.

3
Too Much Information

• Some sentences contain a lot of extra
  information, which is often set off in commas. If
  you ignore it, you can find the subject and the
  verb more easily.
• Jenny, who had been hard at work organizing the
  schools can drive, an annual event, spoke at
  many student meetings

4
Separated Subjects

• Emily, who has many good ideas, runs her own
  business.
• Very important to our plan is a realistic
  schedule of events.
• Roger, one of the teams best players, has
  decided to become a coach
• Discussion of these issues often causes an
  argument to break out.S

5
Compound Subjects

• Helium and hydrogen are both gases. The subject
  of this sentence doesnt contain a plural noun.
  So why is the verb plural?The verb is plural
  because the sentence contains a compound subject,
  a subject made up of more than one noun. In this
  case, the subject is helium and hydrogen.
  Compound subjects contain more than one thing,
  so they are a type of plural subject. Compound
  subjects need plural verbs.

6
Compound Subject Rules

• Only the conjunction and creates compound
  subjects. Words like or, as well, and along
  with do not make compound subjects.
• Snow and rain leak through this roof. Math and
  Spanish are my two favorite subjects. Martha
  and Gracie plan to stop by later. Dots and
  stripes cover every inch of this fabric.

7
Tricky Singular Nouns

• That couple look happy together. Whats wrong
  with this sentence?Some nouns seem plural but
  are actually singular. In the sentence above,
  couple is singular, even though it describes two
  people. Why? Because it describes them as one
  unit. So, instead of saying The couple look
  happy, we should say The couple looks happy.

8
More Tricky Singular Nouns

• neitherNeither of my brothers is going to the
  party. noneNone of my shirts is blue.
  teamThe team is on a winning streak. seriesA
  series of lectures takes place next week.