Verbs: More than Just Action Words! | Part 1: Subject-Verb Agreement

Verbs Changing Forms Based on The Number of Subjects They Have: Subject-Verb Agreement

Now that we know what verbs are, let’s look at how a verb can change its form based on the number of subjects it has. Simply put, the ‘subject’ of a verb is the thing (it can either be a person, object, place etc.) that is doing/acting on the verb.

For any given verb, there may be one or more subjects. When there is only one, we say that the subject is singular; when there are more than one, we say that the subject is a plural one. Allow me to give you some examples to illustrate the things you have just read:

In the second and fourth examples, note that the verb form changes when the number of subject changes. Did you also notice a pattern between the subjects and verbs? We make sense when we use a singular verb to match a singular subject, and a plural verb to match a plural subject. In such instances, we say that the subjects and the verbs ‘agree’ with each other, and hence, there is what we call ‘subject-verb agreement’.

However, when a plural verb is matched with a singular subject, or when a singular verb is used for plural subjects, then we say that there is no subject-verb agreement. For instance, it would be wrong to write ‘The school are open’ or ‘They eats the apple’. The sentence is awkward due to the lack of subject-verb agreement.

Do note that subjects do not necessarily appear beside their verbs. Many students mistakenly think that the verb must come immediately after the subject. This is not the case. In longer sentences, a verb can be very far from its subject. For example:

In the example above, the subject (the school) of the verb ‘is’ is very far from it.

In summary, Subject-Verb Agreement (SVA) happens when:

• A singular subject (only one) is matched with a singular verb

• A plural subject (more than one) is matched with a plural verb

Let’s put what you’ve learnt so far to the test shall we?

Below is a short paragraph with a few subject-verb agreement errors. Try to see if you can find them!

How many subject-verb agreement errors did you spot? To have a look at the answers, click here.

If you managed to find four SVA errors, great job! Let’s have a look at them:

Explanation

In the first two errors, the word ‘every’ tells us that although there may have been seven wives and seven kittens, we are focusing on each of them individually – singularly. Hence, the expressions ‘every wife’ and ‘every kitten’ are singular and should be paired with a singular verb. There was an error because the verb ‘have’ – which is a plural verb – was used. The verb ‘has’ should have been used instead for both.

In the third error above, the subject is only the man. What about the phrase ‘who told me about his wives, cats, kittens, and toys’ then you might ask; this phrase merely gives us more information about the subject – it doesn’t change the fact that it was still just the man who said he was coming along. Since the subject is a singular one, the singular verb ‘says’ should have been used instead of ‘say’ which is a plural verb. This is a good example of how a verb need not be immediately beside its subject and can come much later, so beware of such sentences!

In the last error, ‘people’ is very clearly a plural subject, and the verb phrase (a phrase made up of a group of words which are all verbs) which was paired with it was incorrect as it started with a singular verb ‘is’. The plural verb ‘are’ has to be used instead.

I hope that you had fun finding the errors and learning about them! (Did you manage to solve the riddle in the paragraph as well?)

Once you keep the subject-verb agreement rules in mind and apply them when checking your work, you will greatly reduce the number of SVA errors that appear in your writing, and tackling the SVA errors in the Editing component in Paper One will be much easier.

This brings us to the end of this post on verbs and subject-verb agreement. Verbs may have a ubiquitous presence in our language, but are often incorrectly used by students. This is the first part of a series of three posts I will be writing on verbs. In the posts that follow, I will focus on how verbs can change forms depending on the tense, and where they appear in a clause.

I hope that after reading and revising the contents of this and the subsequent posts that follow, you would have a better understanding of verbs and will have the skills needed to ensure that you do not make verb-related errors in your writing (which is a big deal!)

I look forward to writing and sharing the subsequent posts with you. Until then, on behalf of the Lil’ but Mighty family, stay happy, stay safe, and stay healthy!