{"id":73434,"date":"2020-03-24T10:30:49","date_gmt":"2020-03-24T10:30:49","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/perfectyourenglish.com\/blog\/?p=73434"},"modified":"2020-03-24T10:30:49","modified_gmt":"2020-03-24T10:30:49","slug":"subject-verb-agreement-rules","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/perfectyourenglish.com\/blog\/subject-verb-agreement-rules\/","title":{"rendered":"Subject Verb Agreement Rules"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>The basic principle of\u00a0<b>subject &#8211; verb agreement<\/b>\u00a0is simple. The verb has to agree with the subject in number and\u00a0person. That means if the subject is a singular noun, the verb has to be singular in number. Plural subjects are followed by plural verbs.<\/p>\n<p>A singular noun is used to talk about one person or thing. Examples are:\u00a0<b>cat, dog, book, tree, flower, boy, teacher<\/b>\u00a0etc.<\/p>\n<p>A singular noun normally has an\u00a0article\u00a0or another\u00a0determiner\u00a0(e.g. some, any, this, that, my, your etc.) with it. We can say\u00a0<b>a cat, my cat, the cat<\/b>\u00a0or\u00a0<b>this cat<\/b>, but not just<b>\u00a0cat<\/b>.<\/p>\n<p>A plural noun is used to talk about more than one person or thing. Examples are:\u00a0<b>cats, dogs, books, trees, flowers, boys, teachers\u00a0<\/b>etc.<\/p>\n<p>A plural noun can be used with or without an article.<\/p>\n<p>Compare:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>There is\u00a0<b>a spider<\/b>\u00a0on the wall. (NOT There is spider on the wall.)<\/li>\n<li><b>A spider<\/b>\u00a0has eight legs. (NOT Spider has eight legs.)<\/li>\n<li><b>Spiders<\/b>\u00a0have eight legs. OR The spiders have eight legs.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>In the\u00a0simple present tense\u00a0when the subject is a singular noun or pronoun, the verb takes the marking<b>\u00a0\u2013s.<\/b>\u00a0There is no\u00a0<b>\u2013s\u00a0<\/b>marking when the subject is a plural noun or pronoun.<\/p>\n<p>Compare:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>Dogs bark. (Here the subject is a plural noun (dogs) and hence the verb doesn\u2019t have the marking \u2013s.)<\/li>\n<li>The dog barks. (Here the subject is a singular noun (the dog) and hence the verb takes the marking \u2013s.)<\/li>\n<li>The bird flies.<\/li>\n<li>Birds fly.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>Just like nouns, pronouns, too, can be singular or plural.<\/p>\n<p>The singular pronouns are:\u00a0<b>I, he, she<\/b>\u00a0and\u00a0<b>it<\/b><\/p>\n<p>The plural pronouns are:\u00a0<b>we\u00a0<\/b>and\u00a0<b>they<\/b><\/p>\n<p>The pronoun\u00a0<b>you<\/b>\u00a0can be singular or plural in number.<\/p>\n<p>We have already learned that different\u00a0tense forms\u00a0are made with the help of auxiliary verbs. Some\u00a0auxiliary verbs\u00a0are only used with singular nouns and pronouns. Examples are:\u00a0<b>is, was<\/b>\u00a0and\u00a0<b>has<\/b>.<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>The boy is writing.<\/li>\n<li>She has a doll.<\/li>\n<li>It was raining.<\/li>\n<li>He is a nice chap.<\/li>\n<li>The dog is hungry.<\/li>\n<li>She is a writer.<\/li>\n<li>Rama was a brave warrior prince.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>The auxiliary verb\u00a0<b>am\u00a0<\/b>is only used in the present tense with the\u00a0first person\u00a0pronoun\u00a0<b>I.<\/b><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>I am writing.<\/li>\n<li>I am a girl.<\/li>\n<li>I am tired.<\/li>\n<li>I am angry.<\/li>\n<li>I am happy.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>Note that when the subject is\u00a0<b>I<\/b>, the verb doesn\u2019t have the marking\u00a0<b>\u2013s\u00a0<\/b>in the simple present tense.<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>I work hard. (NOT I works hard.)<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>Some auxiliary verbs are only used with plural nouns and\u00a0pronouns. Examples are:\u00a0<b>are, were<\/b>\u00a0and\u00a0<b>have<\/b>.<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>They are our friends.<\/li>\n<li>The boys are playing in the park.<\/li>\n<li>The dogs are barking.<\/li>\n<li>They were angry with us.<\/li>\n<li>The girls were busy with their studies.<\/li>\n<li>We were preparing for the exam.<\/li>\n<li>They have come.<\/li>\n<li>We have been cheated.<\/li>\n<li>The boys have handed in their work.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<h3>The pronoun you<\/h3>\n<p>The pronoun\u00a0<b>you\u00a0<\/b>can be singular or plural but it is always used with plural auxiliary verbs like<b>\u00a0are, were<\/b>\u00a0and\u00a0<b>have<\/b>.<\/p>\n<p>When the subject is\u00a0<b>you<\/b>, the verb doesn\u2019t have the marking<b>\u00a0\u2013s<\/b>\u00a0in the simple present tense.<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>You are my friend.<\/li>\n<li>You are amazing.<\/li>\n<li>You were being a stupid.<\/li>\n<li>You work hard. (NOT You works hard.)<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The basic principle of\u00a0subject &#8211; verb agreement\u00a0is simple. The verb has to agree with the subject in number and\u00a0person. That means if the subject is a singular noun, the verb has to be singular&#46;&#46;&#46;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[251],"tags":[173,2255],"class_list":["post-73434","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-grammar","tag-subject-verb-agreement","tag-subject-verb-agreement-rules"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/perfectyourenglish.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/73434","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/perfectyourenglish.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/perfectyourenglish.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/perfectyourenglish.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/perfectyourenglish.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=73434"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/perfectyourenglish.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/73434\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":73435,"href":"https:\/\/perfectyourenglish.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/73434\/revisions\/73435"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/perfectyourenglish.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=73434"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/perfectyourenglish.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=73434"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/perfectyourenglish.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=73434"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}