Grammar Troublespots

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Grammar Troublespots
Agreement

• subject-verb agreement
• Writing Center, University of Houston

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About this Section

• Each complete sentence should
• express a complete thought and
• have a Subject and a Verb.
• In this section you will learn more about
• relationships between Subjects and Verbs,
• problems regarding Subject-Verb Agreement,
• ways to correct such problems.

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Terms

• A Subject is a noun or pronoun partnered
  with a predicate verb.
• Verbs have traditionally been defined as words
  that show action or state of being.
• NOTE Determining singular or plural endings can
  be confusing because an s ending on a noun
  indicates plural, whereas an s on a verb
  indicates singular.

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Verbs that show agreement

• Agreement in number occurs
• with verbs used without auxiliaries in the
  Present Simple Tense and
• with the following auxiliaries am/is/are
  was/were do/does has/have.
• Examples
• (singular) Acid rain causes many troubles.
• (plural) Acid rains cause many troubles.

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Verbs that do not show agreement

• Auxiliaries like will, would, can, could, shall,
  should, may, might, and must
• do not change and
• are always, whatever the subject, followed by the
  simple form of the verb.
• Examples
• (singular) The river might freeze.
• (plural) The streams will probably freeze too.

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Subjects with singular verbs

• Words like each, every, everyone, everybody,
  someone, somebody, something, anyone, anything,
  no one, nobody, nothing
• require a single verb and, therefore,
  are often troublesome for
  second-language learners.
• Examples
• (singular) Everybody is happy.
• (singular) Each student has to be in class on
  time.

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Agreement with there in subject position

• When a sentence starts with There plus a form of
  be, the verb agrees with the head word of the
  phrase that follows the verb.
• Therefore, first determine if the head word is
  singular or plural.
• Examples
• (singular) There is one bottle on the table.
• (plural) There are a lot of people in the room.

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Compound subjects

• When a sentence has a compound subject (more than
  one subject), the verb must be plural in form.
• When the subject is formed with eitheror or
  neithernor, the verb agrees with the phrase
  closest to it.
• Examples
• (pl.) My aunt and my sisters visit me every
  year.
• (pl.) Either my aunt or my sisters visit me
  every year.
• (sg.) Neither my sisters nor my aunt visits me
  every year.

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Agreement in relative clauses

• When you write a relative clause beginning with
  who, which, or that, look for its referent the
  word that who, which, or that refers to.
• The referent determines whether the verb should
  be singular or plural.
• Examples
• (sg.) The journalist who wants to interview you
• works for a business magazine.
• (pl.) The journalists who want to interview you
• work for a business magazine.

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Agreement with one of

• Attention! One of is followed by a plural noun
  and a singular verb, agreeing with the head of
  word one.
• Example
• (sg.) One of her friends likes to swim.

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Agreement with some, most, any, all, none

• Quantity words like some, most, any, all, and
  none are used in the following pattern
• a plural verb form with plural countable nouns,
• a singular verb form with noncountable nouns.
• Examples
• (pl.) Most of the students are fond of sports.
• (sg.) Most of furniture is very old.

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Materials used

• Sources
• Raimes, Ann. Grammar Troublespots An Editing
  Guide for Students, Cambridge University Press,
  1998
• Artwork
• PowerPoint ClipArt

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