One of the basic rule but many ESL students make mistakes is agreement between subject and verb. All students know that a singular third person subject should be followed by a singular verb.
Now, what is the singular subject? As you know, it is just one person or object, like she, he, a bed or my uncle. The concept is pretty simple and easy to understand.
The point that I want to determine in this posting is that which subject can be singular or plural?
I sometimes confuse what verb type should I use for the subject ‘Some of’ or ‘Every’. I will explain about that.
Clause as the subject in a sentence
The first thing you have to remember is whether the subject you are talking about can be defined as a singular or not. For example, most clauses are considered as a singular.
Ex1) To learn snowboarding by oneself is difficult.
Ex2) Reading books about physics makes me sleepy.
In the case of Ex 1), not many people make a mistake, because even though you do not detect the subject of the sentence which is the whole RED clause, snowboarding can be understood as a singular. In contrast, it can be slightly confusing in the case of Ex2), since non-English native learners could be confused by ‘bookS’. However, if you look at the sentence little more carefully, you can realize that the verb ‘make’ should have ‘s’ because the subject is a clause.
Sorry to say that but it also has an EXCEPTION.
If we sue a what-clause as subject, we use a singular verb if the following main noun is singular, and either a singular or a plural verb if the following main noun is plural. (although the plural verb, in this case, is , usually, used in formal situations)
Moreover, subjects which can represent the group of people, such as family, can use either a singular or a plural formed verb. Those nouns are called ‘collective nouns’. The examples of ‘collective nouns’ are army, association, audience, class, club, college, committee, community, company, crew, crowd, department, electorate, enemy, family, generation, government, group, jury, opposition, orchestra, population, press, public, school, team, university, and the names of specific organizations such as the bank of Korea, the KBS, Samsung, the United Nations. (I cited those ‘collective nouns’ from Advanced Grammar in Use, Martin Hewings, Cambridge). However, if the sentence tells about the behavior of members of the group, the verb has to be the plural form.
Ex) The audience have voted to whom their favorite performer. (not the audience has voted….) In the similar idea, the subject that shows the group of people must use a singular verb in some cases.
Ex) Orchestra has a concert tomorrow at the Sydney Opera house. (the ‘orchestra’ represents not as the individuals in the orchestra but as a musical instrument performance team)
Agreement between subject and verb 2
Can you guess why I insert the picture? The picture is what I took from a skytrain station yesterday. I was looking for a good example to explain about ‘agreement between subject and verb’. And…… it came to me.
Anyway, look at the copy on the advertisement. ‘Every mood has a colour.’
What? Every mood? Not every moods?? ‘Every something’ sounds like a plural. But let us think how we usually use the ‘Every’. ‘Everybody, Everyone, Every time, Everything….. body, one, time and thing are singular. That is why ‘Every mood’ can be a correct form. If you confusing when you use those kinds of words, you better remind how have you been using those words in common.
Then, I will explain how those kinds of words are used using a table.
※ Subjects joined by ‘and’ but could be considered as a single item can use singular formed verb.
Ex) A Big Mac, a large fries and a medium coke is $6.95.
A big Mac, a large fries and a medium coke are making up a single item(Combo).
※ When a subject is made up of two or more items joined by [(either) ~ or ~] or
[(neither) ~ nor ~], the usage of a verb in those sentence depends on the last item.
; if the last item is singular, verb must be a singular formed.
Ex) Titanic or The avatar is James Cameron’s masterpiece.
; if the last item is plural, a plural verb must be used.
Ex) Either a hamburger or many kinds of fast foods cause the young-age obesity.
; if the last item is singular and previous item is plural, we can use a singular or plural verb.
Ex) Neither many scientists nor the super computer has(have) expected this disaster.
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