My common grammar mistake - Subject and verb Agreement
When writting an essay in English, one of my common grammar mistakes is Subject and Verb Agreement, otherwise known as concord. For example, in present tense, I usually forget that singular noun must be used with singular verb (-s, -es). However, there are rules to use this grammatical point correctly.
First of all, the basic rule is "The subject and verb in a sentence must agree in person and number". In simple case we can say: "Singular subject requires singular verb while plural subject requires plural verb". For example: "He likes reading books" and "They do not like to study abroad".
Secondly, there are also many rules to remember in order to write corrrectly.
- If there is "and" between two or more subject, the verb is always plural. For example: "The actor and his manager are going to the party tonight".
- If there are "or, Either...or, Neither...nor, Not only...but also" between two subject, the verb will depend on the second subject. For example : "Neither he nor I am satisfied with his progress."
- If there are "as well as, with, a long with, together with, accompanied by/with, in addition to, besides, except" between two subject, the verb will depend on the first subject. For example: "The woman with her children is in the store."
- If "Every, Each" (followed by singular noun) or "Each, Every, Either, Neither" (followed by plural noun) stand before the noun, the verb is allways singular. For example: "Every student has to study", "Either of the boys needs to do this work".
- If "All of, Most of, Much ,of A little of, Some of, Plenty of, Part of" stand before uncountable noun, the verb is always singular. For example: "Most of water inn the Earth is salty".
- If "All of, Most of, Many of, A few of, Some of" stand before plural noun, the verb is always plural. For example: "Some of the book are very old".
- If the subject is indefinite pronoun such as someone, anyone, nothing,... or collective noun indicating money, time, measurement, the verb is always singular. For example: "Fifty minutes isn’t enough time to finish this test", "Something was under the house".
- If the sentence begins with a gerund, an infinite, or a clause functioning as subjects, the verb must be singular. For example: "Dieting is very popular today ".
- The + adjective indicating a group of people usually goes with plural verbs. For example: "The poor in this town need much more care".
-Such nouns as “scissors, trousers, shorts, glasses, pants, pliers, tweezers, tongs, jeans ” are always plural. However, they are used with a singular verb when used with “a pair of”. For example: "The pants are in the drawer", "A pair of pants is in the drawer".
- Such nouns ending in “s” as “news, measles, rickets, mathematics, phonetics, physics, mumps, economics, politics, athletics, statistics, …” are used with a singular verb. For example: "Physics is a kind of subject".
- These follow-up nouns (plural without “s”) are used with plural verbs such as people, police, clergy men/women, children, sheep, deer, fish, mice, cattle, oxen, lice, geese, poultry, teeth, feet. For example: "The police are wanting him".
- The following nouns are used to indicate groups of certain animals and thus considered singular: flock of birds/sheep, school of fish herd of cattle , pride of lions pack of dogs
Thirdly, there are also some special cases.
- Collective nouns are usually known as a group and hence used with singular verbs. However, if they indicate the individual members in the group, the plural verbs are used. Some of the collective nouns are “family, team, group, committee, class, crowd, government, organization, club, jury, public, …”. For example: "The crowd was wild with excitement".
- "Majority" can be singular or plural. If it is alone, it is usually singular; if it is followed by a plural noun, it is usually plural. For example, "The majority believes that we are in no danger", "The majority of the students believe him to be innocent".
- If the sentence structure is like this : Here/There/Adverb Phrase of Place + Be + Noun/Pronoun, the verb "be" will depend on the noun. For example: "There is a book, a pen, and two pencils on the table".
There are also many special cases but in my opinion, those I have mentioned is quite popular.
Finally, I hope this portfolio can help to correct the mistakes on Subject and Verb Agreement.
Exercise to practice: (No answer :D)
In each sentence below, underline the verb that agrees with the subjectof the sentence.
1. Customers in the shop (is, are) searching for bargains.
2. Mr. Bromwell, along with Mrs. Taft and Miss Wilson, (was, were) appointed to the Board of Elections.
3. The book with the beautiful illustrations (was, were) purchased at the book fair.
4. A new job, in addition to a new house and new responsibilities, (makes, make) Rena’s life very exciting
5. The words of this song (is, are) easy to learn.
6. Many people (wants, want) to see this movie, and lines at the box office are very long.
7. The exercises on this page (seems, seem) difficult.
8. He (anticipates, anticipate) entering his painting in a local art contest.
9. Pictures, old movie announcements, snapshots of my motorcycle, and a painting of a ship (covers, cover) the walls of my room.
10. The pigeon (has, have) an identification band around its leg.
11. The photographs we took on our vacation (is, are) blurred.
12. The Twins (is, are) available to cut the grass.
13. Some of these sentences (requires, require) singular verbs.
14. The short stories in this collection (is, are) mysteries.
15. Claudia, together with her two brother, (has, have) been working in the store every afternoon after school.
16. Money from taxes on individual incomes and businesses (is, are) used to pay for government services.
17. Today the editing of many newspapers (is, are) done electronically, using computer technology.
18. That pair of shoes (needs, need) new heels.
19. The picnic basket, filled with sandwiches, fruit, and drinks, (feel, feels) heavy to me.
20. In this stanza all the sopranos, along with the tenors, (sings, sing) the same part.
3 comments:
Aha! We have chosen the same topic! (Ahthough it is not encouraged by the teacher) Indeed, Subject and verb Agreement is one of the most fundermantal ruler in English laguage, but it includes some special cases that we must remember. Both you and me have collected some cases, but there are also a lot more points. We should learn hard to remember these cases in oder to avoid making this mistake.
Subject-verb agreement is one of the most confusing grammar points. I would like to highlight to the point "and between two objects". It does not mention countable or uncountable nouns. It reminds me to my misconception. For example, air and water are very important to our lives. If we use simple logic in math, infinity combined with infinity will result to infinity. However, we cannot simply say that uncountable combined with uncountable nouns will result to the usage of singular pronoun.
it is also one of the common mistakes i make in writing my essays.thanks for your tips to avoid making this mistakes!
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