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Grammar Troublespots

Grammar Troublespots. Agreement. subject-verb agreement Writing Center, University of Houston. 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:

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Grammar Troublespots

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  1. Grammar Troublespots Agreement subject-verb agreement Writing Center, University of Houston

  2. 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: • relationshipsbetween Subjects and Verbs, • problems regardingSubject-Verb Agreement, • ways to correct such problems.

  3. Terms: • A Subjectis a noun or pronoun partnered with a predicate verb. • Verbshave traditionally been defined as words that show action or state of being. NOTE: Determining singular or plural endings can be confusing because an –sending on a noun indicates plural, whereas an –son a verb indicates singular.

  4. 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.

  5. 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 mightfreeze. (plural) The streamswill probablyfreezetoo.

  6. 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 troublesomefor second-language learners. Examples: (singular)Everybodyis happy. (singular)Each student has to be in class on time.

  7. 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 isone bottle on the table. (plural)There area lot of peoplein the room.

  8. 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 either…or or neither…nor, the verb agrees with the phrase closest to it. Examples: (pl.) My aunt and my sisters visitme every year. (pl.)Either my aunt ormy sisters visitme every year. (sg.)Neither my sisters normy aunt visits me every year.

  9. 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 journalistswho want to interview you work for a business magazine.

  10. 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.

  11. Agreement with some, most, any, all, none Quantity words like some, most, any, all,andnone 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.

  12. Materials used: Sources: • Raimes, Ann. Grammar Troublespots: An Editing Guide for Students, Cambridge University Press, 1998 Artwork: • PowerPoint ClipArt Click on return button to go back to the exercises.

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