SUBJECT VERB AGREEMENT

Student’s Handout

GENESIS

GENESIS
Welcome!!! We request you to kindly take this opportunity in understanding the basic building
blocks of the English Language. Please ensure that you approach our facilitator and clarify any
doubts that you may have in the duration of the course. Should you have any suggestions or
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Introduction
Definition of SUBJECT

The subject of a sentence is the person or thing doing the action or being described. A subject is
the noun, pronoun or set of words that performs the verb.

For example:

The woman hurried.

Woman is the subject.
She was late.
She is the subject.
Shakespeare in Love won an Academy Award.
Shakespeare in Love is the subject.

How to Identify the Subject:

The clearest way of spotting the subject of a sentence is to turn the sentence into a yes-no
question (by this we mean a question which can be answered with either 'yes' or 'no'). In English,
questions are formed by reversing the order between subject & first verb which follows it.
Example:
He can keep a dying patient alive for more than a week.
The appropriate question here if we want a 'yes' or 'no' as an answer is:
Can he keep a dying patient alive for more than a week?
Here 'he' and 'can' have changed places and that means that 'he' must be the subject.
OR
By asking the question who or on what – the verb has its influence on.
Example:
The dog slept outside the house all night.
(Who slept outside the house all night? – The answer is the dog. Hence, Dog is the subject)

Types of Subjects
 Simple Subject
 Compound Subject

GENESIS
What Is a Simple Subject?
Simple subject is the term used for the single word which is the subject of a verb.
A simple subject will often have modifiers before or after it, but, once these are removed, the
word left is the simple subject

Examples of Simple Subjects

The hungry fox darted across the yard.

(‘The’ and ‘hungry’ are modifiers for the simple subject fox.)

The small carton of nails was found under the seat.

(The, small, and of nails are modifiers for the simple subject carton.)

What Is a Compound Subject?

A compound subject is one which consists of more than one noun. (This
includes pronouns, noun phrases, and noun clauses.) When the subject of a sentence is made up
of two or more elements, it's called a compound subject.

The individual elements in a compound subject are joined by words like ‘and’
and ‘or’ (called coordinate conjunctions) or pairings like either/or and
neither/nor (called correlative conjunctions).

Examples of Compound Subjects

A clean driving license, sales experience and team spirit are essential.

A fool and his money are easily parted.

The pigeon and the falcon fell from view.

My wife and I cannot attend unfortunately.

Neither the British Army nor the Metropolitan Police had any suitable vehicles.

Is a Compound Subject Singular or Plural?

When ‘and’ is used to join the elements in a compound subject, the compound subject is treated
as plural.
For example: Mark and Craig are flying on Saturday.

However, when using terms like ‘as well as’ and ‘alongside’ the compound subject might not
necessarily be plural.
For example: Mark as well as Craig is flying on Saturday.

When using or, either/or, or neither/nor, the compound subject might be singular or plural.
Generally, if all elements are singular, then the compound subject should be treated as singular.

GENESIS
Exercise

Identify the subject and underline the same

 The house was painted last year.

 The cat caught the mouse.
 My bicycle rides very comfortably.
 At the concert yesterday, I had a terrific time.
 Jeff and Michelle are cooking Chinese food tonight.
 Jess taught Della how to make tortillas.
 Many excellent authors begin writing later in life.
 At orientation, everyone was very friendly.
 My neighbor got his car fixed.
 The lady with the red hat is standing in the rain

Definition of VERB

A verb is a word or set of words that shows action (runs, is going, has been painting); feeling
(loves, envies); or state of being (am, are, is, have been, was, seem).
Examples:
He ran around the block.
I like my friend.
They seem friendly.

Subject Verb to be in the past Verb to be in the Verb to be in the future

tense present tense tense

I was am will be
You were are will be
He / She / It was is will be
We were are will be
You were are will be
They were are will be

Verbs Express Physical Actions

These are words that indicate the actual action.

Example
She sells pegs and lucky heather.
(In this example, the word sells is a verb. It expresses the physical activity to sell.)
The doctor wrote the prescription.
(In this example, the word wrote is a verb. It expresses the physical activity to write.)
Alison bought a ticket.
(The word bought is a verb. It expresses the physical activity to buy.)
Verbs Express Mental Actions
As we covered at the start, verbs do not necessarily express physical actions like the ones above.
They can express mental actions too:

GENESIS
Example:
She considers the job done.
(The word considers is a verb. It expresses the mental activity to consider.)
Peter guessed the right number.
(The word guessed is a verb. It expresses the mental activity to guess.)
I thought the same thing.
(The word thought is a verb. It expresses the mental activity to think.)
Verbs Express a State of Being
A small, but extremely important group of verbs do not express any activity at all. The most
important verb in this group – arguably of all – is the verb to be. As already mentioned, this is
seen in forms like is, are, were, was, will be, etc.

Example:
Edwina is the largest elephant in this area.
(The word “is” is a verb from the verb to be.)
It was a joke.
(The word “was” is a verb from the verb to be.)
I am.
(The word “am” is a verb from the verb to be.)

(Point of interest: ‘I am’ or is the shortest sentence in English.)

What Are Auxiliary Verbs?
An auxiliary verb (or a helping verb as it's also called) accompanies a main verb to help express
its tense, mood, or voice. The most common auxiliary verbs are be, do, and have. You will see
these in the following forms:

Be: am, is, are, was, were, being, been

Do: does, do, did
Have: has, have, had, having

Modal auxiliary verbs are also auxiliary verbs. They are ‘can, could, may, might, must, ought
to, shall, should, will, and would’. (These never change their forms.)

Examples of Auxiliary Verbs

Here are some examples of auxiliary verbs expressing tense (main verbs in bold):

I have been sitting here since 7 o'clock.

Sarah was waiting for the shark to reappear.
John will have broken the record by then.

Here are some examples of auxiliary verbs expressing voice:

Unfortunately, our dessert has been eaten by the dog.

The phone will be disconnected tomorrow.

Here are some examples of auxiliary verbs being used to express mood:

If he should arrive, tell him to leave.

If he were to arrive in the next 10 minutes, we would still be on track.

GENESIS
Exercise

1) Ronnie, I ________________ you in a long time. How have you been?

 was seen
 saw
 haven't seen
 hadn't seen

2) Yesterday I ____________ to see my grandparents.

 go
 have gone
 gone
 went

3) Some people say that it is better to _________ for today.

 is living
 living
 lives
 live

4) Have you ever ____________ to Canada?

 being
 be
 been
 have been

5) Albert doesn't like ___________ on weekends.

 working
 to work
 work
 Answers 1 and 2 are correct

6) He occasionally _______________ a headache in the morning.

 having
 has
 have
 is having

7) The time on the clock ____________ correct.

 is
 should be
 might be
 could be
 All the above are correct

GENESIS
8) I ____________ all the requirements for the job already.
 am meeting
 meet
 have met
 will meet

9) Marsha sometimes ___________ her homework.

 doesn't do
 hasn't done
 has been done
 do

10) When you ___________ the Lotto, be sure to call me.

 are going to win
 will win
 are winning
 win

11) The sun ______ in the east, and _____ in the west.
 sets, rises
 rises, sets
 will rise, will set
 Both answer 2 & 3 are correct.

12) What time _____________ up every day?

 are you waking
 have you been waking
 do you wake
 All the above are correct

13) I ___________ time to work on that project tomorrow.

 will have
 am going to have
 don't have
 have
 All the above are correct.

14) Maribel says that she ___________ in love before.

 had never been
 has always been
 has never being
 is always

15) Don't bother me now. I ___________ the movie.

 be watching
 am watching
 have to watch
 Both answer 2 and 3 are correct.

GENESIS
 16) Jimmy ____________ his homework before the teacher comes.
 needs to finish
 has to do
 wants to do
 will complete
 All the above answers are correct.

Definition of OBJECT (PREDICATE)

The predicate is the part of a sentence (or clause) which tells us what the subject does or is. To
put it another way, the predicate is everything that is not the subject.

Example:

The man from the shop is a monster.

He stole my bike last week.

A sentence has two parts: the subject and the predicate. The subject is what the sentence is
about, and the predicate is a comment about the subject.

At the heart of the predicate is a verb. In addition to the verb, a predicate can contain direct
objects, indirect objects, and various kinds of phrases.

Examples of Predicates of Sentences

Elvis lives.

Adam lives in Bangalore.

The telegram contained exciting news.

The girls in our office are experienced instructors.

They are experienced instructors, who acquired their experience in France.

HAVE YOU MET THE GRAMMATICAL PERSON?

What Is First Person?

The term first person refers to the speaker himself or a group that includes the speaker
(i.e., I, me, we, and us).

Person Subjective Case Objective Case Possessive Case Possessive Case

Possessive Adjective Absolute Possessive
Pronouns
First Person I me my mine
Singular
Example: I like Example: He Example: This This is mine.
cheese. likes me. is my car.
First Person we us our ours
Plural
Example: We hate Example: They Example: This Example: This is ours.
exams. hate us. is our house.

GENESIS
 What Is Second Person?
The term second person refers to the speaker's audience (i.e. you).

Person Subjective Case Objective Case Possessive Case Possessive Case

Possessive Adjective Absolute Possessive
Pronouns
Second Person you you your yours
Singular
Example: You left Example: She likes Example: That These are yours.
early. you. was your fault.
Second Person you you your yours
Plural
Example: You left Example: She likes Example: That These are yours.
early. you. was your fault.

What Is Third Person?

The term third person refers to someone else, i.e., not the writer or a group including the writer
(I, me, we, us) or the writer's audience (you).

Person Subjective Case Objective Case Possessive Case Possessive Case

Possessive Adjective Absolute Possessive
Pronouns

Third Person he / she / it him / her / it his / her / its his / hers / its
Singular
Example: He is not Example: We Example: We were her These were hers.
happy. saw him. support.
Third Person they them their theirs
Plural
Example: They are Example: We like Example: We These are theirs.
leaving. them. were their allies.

Definition of SVA (Subject-Verb Agreement)

SVA refers to the fact that the subject and verb in a sentence must agree to the number.

Example: Example: I walk on grass.

(Here “I” and “walk” are in singular because of “grass” which is a noun without a plural form.
There is no word as grasses.)
A singular subject needs to have a singular verb and a plural subject needs to have a plural verb.

Ways to identify singular and plural subjects, nouns and verbs.

Singular and plural subjects or nouns are easy to identify. Most of the subjects and the nouns in their plural form
would end with an ‘s’.
Example: Talk/Talks are not the singular and the plural form of the verb.

GENESIS
The verbs do not follow this rule.
A tip to identify the plural form of a verb to be used in a sentence is, when you ask yourself,
which verb form would you use with the word “they” and which would you use with “he/she?”
E.g. He talks, she talks, and they walk
(Over here, as he/she are singular pronouns, walks become the singular verb and as they is a
plural pronoun, walk is the plural form.)

Exercise for students:

1) They ______ the twigs (collect/collects)
2) Every morning, Sam ______ a mile (run/runs)
3) Trees _____ in forest (grow/grows)
4) The bird ______ in sky (fly/flies)
5) I ________ very hard (works/work)
6) I ____ to college (walk/walks)
7) We _____ to a movie (go/goes)
8) He _______ work on Monday (join/joins)

Guidelines for SVA

1. When 2 singular verbs are joined by the words or/nor the verb is always singular
Example:
He-man or Batman is meeting you at the station.
(Here, “Meeting” is the verb which is in singular because when you break he sentence the nouns
are in singular. The conjunction “OR” does not imply both. It means either one of them.)
Exercise
 Green or Blue ____ (t-shirt/t-shirts) will do
 Dell or HP ___ (is/are) affordable
 Upma or Dosa ___(is/are) served
 Dale Steyn or Boult___ (is/are) a worthy opponents
 Manchester United or Arsenal ___ (is/are) winning this season
 To be? Or not to be? ____(is/are) the question
 Thumbs Up or Pepsi ___ (is/are) advisable
 Running Shoes or Sports shoes___ (is/are) preferred

GENESIS
2. Two singular subjects using ‘either/or’ or ‘neither/nor’ will use a singular verb.
Example:
Neither He-Man nor Batman is free to meet you at the station.
(Here, “Meet” is in singular as the nouns are in singular.)

Exercise:
 Either Dhawan or Warner _____(is/are) opening the batting
 Neither laptop nor phone______ (is/are) working
 Either Wildcraft or Adventure Works____ (is/are) the main sponsor.
 Neither newspaper nor magazine_____ (is/are) considered as main stream media.
 Either Hrithik or Salman__(is/are) going to play the role.
 Neither UG or PG________ (teach/teaches) you life skills.
 Either Thomas or Joseph will________ (pick/picks) me up.
 Neither Vista nor Windows 8_______ (is/are) good.

3. When a conjunction “And” connects two Nouns or pronouns, Use plural verb.
Example:
He-Man and Batman are meeting you at the station.
(Here, the Modal/Auxiliary verb is changing as there are two people included hence are)

Exercise:
 Shiva & Parvathy_____ (are/is) playing Ludo.
 Menaka & Rambha__________ (are/is) heading to the club for a party.
 Vishnu & Naarad_________ (are/is) on the Yamaha heading towards kailasa.
 Ramya & Aishwarya__________ (is/are) the two leading ladies in the play.
 Tommy & Maddy__________ (is/are) the two leading contestants for this election.
 Ambrish & Vishnu_________ (are/is) best friends.
 We have two new _________ (stars/star) in the galaxy.
 The new _________ (mall/malls) in town are Orion & Mantri.
 The most important____________(rules/rule) in the textbook_____(is/are) Rule 1 & 2
 I ________ (have/has) two best friends.

GENESIS
4. When a compound subject, contains both a singular and a plural noun and pronouns joined by (or/nor), the
verb, should agree with the part of the subject closest or nearer to the verb.

Example:
Batman or his followers jog everyday
His followers or Batman jogs every day.
(Here, there is a change in verb form. It is in plural form in the 1st sentence as “Jog” as it is
preceded by a plural & a collective noun “followers”. It is in singular in the second sentence as it
is preceded by a singular noun “Batman”)

Exercise
 Naren or Sonia_______ (cleans/clean) the room
 Teachers or the student__________ (presents/present) the flowchart
 Kallu nor his friends_______(are/is) present in the class
 Gopikas or Krishna will________ (answer/answers) the phone.
 Ganesh’s friends nor Mahesh is not intelligent enough to__________(answer/answers)
the question
 Salman or Sharukh will__________ (walk/walks) the ramp
 Aamir nor Ranbir_______ (has/have) good looks.
 Juhi or Madhuri will______ (sing/sings) a song
 Rekha nor Jaya_______(likes/like) Amithabh
 The runners or Lalu__________ (has/have) to cross the finishing line by evening.

5. When a phrase comes between the subject and verb, the verb has to agree with the subject, not with the noun or
pronoun in the phrase.

Example:
The birthday boy, along with his friends, is anxious for the party.
(Here the modal verb “is” is referring to “boy” in the sentence and not to “friends”)
NOTE: This rule is applicable only when there is a phrase in a sentence and when the focus is
on the subject.
Exercise:
 Dravid, along with his teammates, ___________ (are/is) responsible for the win.
 Genghis Khan, with his army_______(were/was) the early invader to this country.
 The Health minister, with his cabinet______(is/are) in a meeting
 Sharada, with her troop, _____ (is/are) waiting in the arena.

GENESIS
  Gandhi, with his family_______(was/were) in South Africa for a couple of years
 Sachin, with Anjali & Rohan _________ (is/are) in Australia.
 Three of this litter of cats______ (is/are) sold.
 One animal in a heard_________ (is/are) always a__________ (victim/victims) to
predators.
 Muttu, with the members of the association______ (is/are) staging the protest.
 Germany________ (is/were) a part of the European continent.

6. A sentence with doesn’t should have a singular subject.

A sentence with don’t should have a plural subject

Example:
Ram doesn’t go to school.
They don’t do their homework

Exercise:

 Children____________ (doesn’t/don’t) want to go to school.

 He__________ (don’t/doesn’t) want to eat ice cream
 They_________(doesn’t/don’t) want to go to Wonderla
 It________(don’t/doesn’t) move fast
 Ranjit ________(don’t/doesn’t) take classes well
 Dell_______(don’t/doesn’t) manufacture Tablets
 Apple and Microsoft________(doesn’t/don’t) compete with Google
 Ram and Sham_________(don’t/doesn’t) know how to swim
 Jeans and formal shoe_________(doesn’t/don’t) go hand in hand
 Only Pepper Spray________(don’t/doesn’t) ensure the safety of women
 A cricketer_________(don’t/doesn’t) necessarily have to be fit

7. Each, either, each one, everyone, neither, everybody, anyone, anybody, somebody, nobody someone and no one are
singular, hence they need a singular verb

Example:
Each of the girls is qualified to win the prize
(Here, as we are using each of the girls, we are talking about one girl; hence the modal verb is
singular.)

GENESIS
 Plural form of the same sentence: All the girls are qualified to win the prize.
(Here, when we say all, we are not taking them as a single unit but in their numbers)
Everybody is responsible to keep the city clean
(Here, “Everybody” becomes a single collective noun. Hence we use a singular modal verb)

Exercise

Singular Plural
Each one of them is good
All of them are able to do work
Each flower costs Rs 10
All of them are match winners
Neither of the boys is fit for the job
They are ready to give advice
Is anyone ready to come on stage?
They are willing to help me
Somebody is going to get hurt today
All are responsible for the accident
8. Sentences that begin with there is or there are have the subject following the verb, as “there” is not a subject.
Therefore, the verb must agree with what follows it.

Example:
There are many stars in the sky.
There is one sun in the sky.

Exercise
Singular Plural
There are many beautiful flowers in the garden
There is only one principal for the college
There are many players in the team
There is only one Sachin Tendulkar
There are many books in the shelf
There is a pink house in this area
There are many trainers whom I look up to
There is a file in the pen drive which is infected
There are many flags hoisted in the arena
There is a job for everyone in this office

GENESIS