Subject & Verb Agreement (Part 1)

Subject & Verb Agreement

The most important two elements in a sentence are: Subject & Verb

Without subject and verb we cannot make any sentence.

There is an important relation between these two basic elements of a sentence.

The verb must agree with the number and the person of the subject.

If the subject is singular in number, the verb will also be used according to it. Similarly, the plural subjects also take the verbs according to them.

Tenses	Singular Subjects He, she, it, third person singular nouns ( Mohan, Renu, etc)	Plural Subjects We, You, they and third person plural nouns (Mohan & Sohan, People, Boys, etc.) Exceptional Subjects   ‘I’	Exceptional Subjects
Present Simple	+ve sentences ‘s’ or  ‘es’ with V-1 Neg./Interrogative sentences Does+ v-1	+ve sentences V-1 Neg./Interrogative sentences Do + v-1
Past Simple	+ve sentences V-2 Neg./Interrogative sentences Did+ v-1	+ve sentences V-2 Neg./Interrogative sentences Did+ v-1
Present Perfect Tense	Has+ 3rd form of the verb	Have + 3rd form of the verb
Past Perfect Tense	Had + 3rd form of the verb	Had + 3rd form of the verb
Future Perfect tense	Will have/shall have + 3rd form of the verb	Will have/shall have + 3rd form of the verb	Someimes ‘I’ & ‘we’ take shall have + v-3
Future Simple	Will + 3rd form of the verb	Will + 3rd form of the verb	‘I’ & ‘we’ take shall + v-1
Present Contnuous tense	Is + v-1 with ‘ing’	Are+ V-1 with ‘ing’	‘I’ take ‘am’+ V-1 with ‘ing’
Present Perfect Continuous Tense	Has + been+V-1 with ‘ing’ + since or for	Have + been+V-1 with ‘ing’+ since or for	. ............
Past Contnuous tense	was + v-1 with ‘ing’	were+ V-1 with ‘ing’
Past  Perfect Continuous Tense	Had + been+V-1 with ‘ing’ + since or for	Had+ been+V-1 with ‘ing’+ since or for	.............
Future Contnuous tense	Will +be+V-1 with ‘ing’	Will +be+V-1 with ‘ing’	Sometimes ‘I’ & ‘we’ take shall be+ V-1 with ‘ing’
Future Perfect Continuous Tense	Will have+been+V-1 with ‘ing’ + since or for	Will have+been+V-1 with ‘ing’ + since or for	Sometimes ‘I’ & ‘we’ take shall have+been+V-1 with ‘ing’ + since or for

1.      Sometimes the students face some difficulty in using verb after ‘There’. It is decided by the real subject that comes after the primary verb used. If it is singular in number or person, use singular verb and the vice versa.

For example,

There are two thousand students in my school.

In the above sentence, ‘there’ is a dummy subject and the real subject is ‘two hundred students’. Since it is plural in number, the plural verb will be used. So ‘are’ is used here.

Use verbs in the following sentences.

1.    There..................no hope of the patient’s recovery.

2.    There................ be a grand finale of Music Competition in our school on Monday next.

3.    There..................many children who came to take part in the competition yesterday.

4.    There....................no reason for you to stay at home.

5.    There.....................several options for you to decide about your career.

6.    There..................no policeman at the police station today.

7.    There....................no dogs in this village.

8.    How many fingers...................there on your hand?

2.    Collective nouns take singular verbs. There are so many collective nouns used in English. For example, for a group of cattle, we use ‘herd’ and for a group of soldiers, we use ‘army/troupe/battalion.

Examples,

A herd of cattle was coming towards the village.

A pack of hounds was ready attack the deer.

Other collective nouns are:

1. Army is a collection of soldiers.
2. Crowd or a mob is a collection or group of people.
3. Flock is a collection of animals ,especially of sheep or birds
4. Fleet is a collection of ships.
5. A number of artistes, dancers, acrobats:  troupe
6. A number of bees  :    swarm
7. A collection of books :   library
8. A number of cattle, swine:   herd
9. A number of chicken hatched at the same time:    brood
10. A number of directors of a company:    board
11. A number of drawers :    chest
12. A collection of fish :   shoal/school
13. A collection of flowers     :   bunch/ bouquet
14. A number of fruit trees :  orchard
15. A number of geese:  gaggle
16. A collection of grapes, bananas, keys:  bunch
17. A number of hounds, wolves: pack
18. A number of judges  :   bench
19. A number of people at a religious meeting: congregation
20. A number of people listening to a musical show
21. or concert :   audience
22. A number of people watching a match :  spectators
23. A number of people collected or gathered
24. without any specific purpose   :   crowd  
25. A number  of people gathered for   
26. some common purpose:   assembly
27. A number of people gathered
28. for some destructive purpose:  mob
29. A number of savage people:  horde
30. A number of pigs, puppies :  litter
31. A number of players, oxen or horses
32. yoked together:  team
33. A set of rooms  :  suite /swit/
34. A number of sailors  :  crew
35. A number of sheep :  flock
36. A number of ships, cars      :    fleet
37. A number of soldiers :  army, troop: battalion, regiment
38. A number of stars:  constellation
39. A collection of sticks  :   bundle
40. A number of thieves   : pack
41. A number of trees  :    clump

42.    A collection of wood, hay piled together: stack            

3.