Verbs and Verb Phrases

Subject-Verb Agreement

It became clear in Activity 20 when the subject was switched from my dog to my dogs that the subject of the sentence has an influence on the verb form.  This influence is called subject-verb agreement.  In essence, the subject and the verb form have to match up so that it is clear what the subject is that is being paired up with the verb.  In an example that shows how this matching works, we can compare the sentence The woman with the flowers in her hands is waving to The flowers in the woman’s hand are waving.  Both sentences describe the same action of waving, but the subject is different in each.  How do we know what or who is waving?  The rule of subject-verb agreement tells us.  Is waving in the first sentence indicates that we should look for a singular subject, and we locate the word woman to the left of the verb.  This is one way we know the woman is doing the waving action.  In the second sentence, the verb are waving indicates we should look for a plural subject, and we locate the word flowers in the plural form to the left of the verb.

The issue of whether the subject refers to one or more than one entity is called the number of the subject, and the technical subject-verb agreement rule states that the verb in the predicate must agree in number with the noun that is the subject.

This is not the only way that the subject and verb must agree, however.  They also must agree in person.  In any conversation, there is one person who acts as the speaker at any given moment, and this is the first person of any conversation—without a speaker, there is no conversation!  Therefore, any subject that refers to the speaker is called a 1st person subject.  There are two very common pronouns that are used as subjects in English, I and we.  I refers to the speaker alone, and we refers to the speaker and at least one other person, so the difference between I and we is number. 

To have a real conversation, there needs to be a listener, too, and any reference to the second essential person in the conversation is called a 2nd person reference, and there is one common pronoun that is used for 2nd person subjects in English, you.  English has some archaic 2nd subject pronouns, too, thou and ye.  Thou is a singular subject, and ye is a plural subject.  In modern English you is used for both singular and plural listeners.

Finally, the speaker can talk about a third person who isn’t part of the conversation.  A reference to a 3rd person subject is often done by naming the person (or thing) directly, but it can also be accomplished with one of several pronouns.  He, she, and it are 3rd person singular pronouns, and they is a 3rd person plural pronoun.

The issue of whether the subject refers to a participant in the conversation or not and which participant is referred to is called the person of the subject, and the technical subject-verb agreement rule states that the verb in the predicate must agree in person with the noun or pronoun that is the subject.  Taken together, then, the subject-verb agreement rule states that the verb must agree in number and person with the head noun of the subject.

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