Subject- Verb Agreement

English is the most widely spoken language. There are approximately sixty-seven different countries that speak English. That is more than any other language of the world. As a sophisticated and widely spoken language, English has a plethora of sentence construction rules. These rules are essential and must be followed by every English speaker. One such rule among all others is subject-verb agreement. Verb agreement is a necessary rule in the English language. To construct grammatically accurate sentences, abiding by the Subject-verb agreement rule is essential.

What are the Subject-verb agreement rules?

The subject-verb agreement rule states that the number of subjects in the sentence must correspond to the number of a verb in a sentence. This means that if there is a singular subject in the sentence, then there should be only a singular verb in the sentence as well. Likewise, if the number of subject present in a given sentence is plural, then the number of verb must also be plural. 

Some examples of the usage of verb agreement

Following are some subject- verb agreement examples that will help us in understanding the grammatical rule better.

1- My brother plays every day.

In the above sentence, “Brother” is the subject and and it is in third person singular number, so, “plays” is the verb. In the above sentence, it can be seen that there is a subject that is mentioned in the third person singular number, and the singular form of the verb is used. This tells us that the sentence follows the rule of subject-verb agreement and it is grammatically correct. Abiding by the laws of verb agreement will help in the accurate construction of sentences.

2- Interviews are an essential method of collecting data as they allow researchers to comprehend and have an insight into the participants.

In this example, ‘Interviwes’ and ‘they’ are subjects. Both of them are in third person plural number. The verb is automatically in plural i.e. ‘are’ and ‘allow’. This shows that the ubject-verb agreement is followed to amke a grammatically correct sentence.

3- The members as well as the students are excited.

In the above example, the subject is “The members as well as the students”. This is in third person plural form. The verb is “are” which is in plural form. Thus, it is abiding all the rules of the subject-verb agreement concept. Hence, the construction of the above sentence is grammatically correct.

Conclusion

For the construction of proper sentences, various garmmatical and linguistic points must be kept in mind. To harness the expertise in speech in English language, profound knowledge about these subject-verb agreement is essential. The key to attaining mastery over the complex linguistic structure of English lies in frequent practice of proper verb arrangement.