Sample English lesson

Subject-Verb Agreement

Key points

By now, you are probably very familiar with subjects and verbs. You'll remember that a subject is the main person, place or thing in a sentence; and the verb is what this main character does. Subjects and verbs are so important that without them, a sentence is just not a proper sentence.

Verbs are usually not too difficult to find: they are the action words in the sentence. However, you have to make sure that you are using the right tense of the verbs; for example, events that happen in the past require past tense verbs. And you have to remember that participles (like: sung, seen, done; and walking, eating, working) are only parts of verbs and always need helper verbs (like: had, have; or is, was) to make them complete.

Subjects can be trickier to find. Subjects, of course, are the doers of the action in a sentence, but this is not always so obvious. It's important to remember that subjects are never found in a phrase. Words like "here" and "there" are almost never the subject of a sentence. Subjects are not always at the beginning of a sentence. And once you find the subject and the verb of a sentence, you have to make sure that they "agree" -- a plural (more than one) subject needs to have a plural verb, for example.

Self Assessment

Why do we spend so much time learning about subjects and verbs?

The subject and the verb really are the "heart" of the sentence. Having the subject and verb not "agree" -- or, even worse, leaving one of them out altogether -- shows you up right away as a poor writer.

The subject and the verb are the foundation on which the rest of your sentence is built. If your subject and your verb are not quite right, the rest of your sentence is going to sound "funny", no matter what interesting information you add to it.

Key points

Here's a summary of what we've learned so far about making the subject and the verb "agree" First try to find the main verb (the "action") of the sentence. The subject will be the person, place or thing that is doing the action. The subject is never found in a phrase. You can cross out all the phrases in a sentence when you are looking for the subject. The subject may not always come first in a sentence. In fact, the verb might come first (this is especially true in a question). The words "here" and "there" are almost never the subject of a sentence. Compound subjects, joined together with the word "and", always need a plural verb. When you have compound subjects which are joined together with the word combinations "either ... or" or "neither .... nor", you must make the verb agree with the subject which is closest to the verb. Once you do find the subject and the verb, ignore everything else in the sentence for a minute. Just put the subject and verb together and see how they sound. If it's a plural subject, does it have a plural verb form? Change the verb to match the subject if you have to.

Self Assessment

Using these rules above, practice re-writing these sentences so that they are correct Besides her brothers, she have four other relatives in town. The box with the envelopes contain all the insurance information. Either the cookies or the cake are upsetting my stomach. Both Casey and Sue is going to Europe in spring. The balls in this court is needing repair.

Answers'

1. Besides her brothers, she has four other relatives in town.
2. The box with the envelopes contains all the insurance information.
3. Either the cookies or the cake is upsetting my stomach.
4. Both Casey and Sue are going to Europe in spring.
5. The balls in this court are in need of repair.

Activity

Ready for Subject-Verb Agreement: HOMEWORK?

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OPEN CONTENT courtesy of College of the Rockies