Name: Grammar Module 7: Subject-Verb Agreement
Uploaded: 2015-05-28T10:54:29.000Z
Duration: 12 min 46 s
Description: Thousands of YouTube videos with English-Chinese subtitles! Now you can learn to understand native speakers, expand your vocabulary, and improve your pronunciation...

Most people with english as a first language

will intuitively select the correct verb agreement,

if they're able to accurately pinpoint the subject and the verb.

Most people find it easiest to find the verb first

In the sentence 'the baby owl will be leaving the comfortable nest soon.'

'Will be leaving' is the verb in this sentence.

It is then easy to tell who or what will be leaving.

Owl is the simple subject in this sentence.

From now on we will refer to the simple subject.

That is, the subject without any adjectives as the subject.

One of the most common mistakes in selecting the correct subject of a sentence

is taking the noun in a prepositional phrase as the subject.

In this example there is a prepositional phrase between the subject and the verb.

It is important to ignore the prepositional phrase in order to select the correct subject.

If you do not remove the prepositional phrase 'of the light bulbs,'

you might accidentally use the verb 'need' to match the word lightbulbs,

instead of the true subject, which is 'one.'

Everyone except you and me has gone to the party.

The propositional phrase 'except you and me' is crossed off

In addition to prepositions, other words can often appear between the subject and the verb

and can interfere with subject verb agreement.

The dresser, along with the two night tables, is for sale.

My neighbour, as well as one of my co-workers,

The highlighted words are known as intervening words.

These words can be thought of as an interruption to the original thought,

and the verb must agree with the subject of the original thought,

dresser and neighbour, not the interruption.

to match the singular subjects: dresser and neighbour.

If the intervening words are not removed,

the writer might be tempted to incorrectly use the words 'night tables'

and then to use the plural verb, 'are,' instead of 'is.'

Other common intervening words to look for include in addition to,

These are often set apart from the rest of the sentence by a pair of commas,

When you have a sentence with two subjects joined by the word 'and,'

you have what's known as a compound subject.

even if both of the subjects are singular.

Running and swimming are my favourite activities.

are the subjects of the sentence that are joined together by the word 'and.'

And therefore require the plural verb 'are,'

Although this rule looks simple enough off hand,

note that there are a few things to watch for:

When a company name has multiple nouns and the word 'and,'

Peterson, Peterson and Stanley Incorporated

is a company I would not like to work for.

There's only one company and not multiple subjects.

or every appears with the nouns that are separated by 'and,'

then the noun is still considered singular.

feels like an eternity when one is separated from his beloved.

there are multiple subjects that are separated by the word 'and.'

You will recall that the usual solution for compound subjects separated by 'and' is to use a plural verb.

when the word each or every is used, each subject is thought of individually.

Be cautious when you see a sentence with a verb that appears before the subject.