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Griffith English Language Institute
HELP Yourself Resource Transcript: Subject Verb Agreement
In this video, you’ll learn about subject-verb agreement in English. First, we will review the
basics of subject-verb agreement, and then we will look at some common causes of
confusion:
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distance
compound subjects
collective nouns
singular indefinite pronouns, and
countability
Don’t worry about these grammar terms - we will explain them as we go.
Basics
Subject verb agreement’ means that the subject of a sentence (such as “I” or “she”) agrees
with the main verb of the sentence. The basic principle is actually quite simple, as long as
you can identify the subject. This table will remind you of first, second, third person as well
as singular and plural.
The table on the screen shows two examples of the simple present tense. Notice how the
base form of the verb changes for the third person singular, he, she or it.
This rule also applies in the present perfect where we choose ‘have’ or ‘has’ depending on
the subject. It also applies in continuous tenses such as the present continuous or past
continuous where we have to choose the correct form of the verb ‘be’. If you find it difficult to
decide which form of the verb to use, a good tip is to substitute the noun for a pronoun. For
example, for ‘the research’, use ‘it’. For ‘the authors’ use ‘they’.
Let’s practise that. What pronouns could you use in the following sentences? For ‘your
assignments’ we could use the pronoun ‘they’; for Australia, ‘it’, and for “Sarah and I”, ‘we’. In
the last example, ‘studying’ is a gerund. It looks like a verb but it is working as a noun and
we can use the pronoun ‘it’.
Did you get them right? If so, then you shouldn’t have much difficulty with subject-verb
agreement in basic sentences. Of course, not all sentences are this simple. Let’s look at
some more complicated situations.
Distance
One of the most common challenges is the distance between the subject and the main verb.
For example, “Newton’s first law of motion states that a body in motion stays in motion.” In
this sentence, even though the noun ‘motion’ is closer to the main verb ‘states’, the subject is
the noun ‘law’, which appears earlier in the sentence. Sometimes you need to look back in
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the sentence to identify the subject; don’t assume that the subject is the noun just before the
verb. If you find it hard to identify main verbs and subjects, try the exercises below.
Compound Subjects
Now let’s look at compound subjects - that is, where a sentence has two subjects. For
example, “The tutor and the student are discussing the lesson”. In this sentence, ‘the tutor’
and ‘the student’ together mean ‘they’ so the verb needs to agree with ‘they’. So we say ‘are
discussing’, not ‘is discussing’.
This next example combines a positive and a negative subject. With compound subjects like
this, the verb agrees with the positive subject.
Collective Nouns
Next, let’s look at Collective nouns. These are words like ‘group’, ‘crowd’, ‘team’ and
‘committee’. These are words that refer to things that have been grouped together but,
grammatically, they are considered as one thing like ‘it’. So we could say:
“The group meets every Tuesday at the Multifaith Centre.”
“The committee has approved the funding for the event.”
Singular Indefinite Pronouns
Now let’s turn our attention to singular indefinite pronouns. These include:
 Another
 One, everyone
 Anyone, anybody, anything
 Everyone, everybody, everything
 Each
 No one, nobody, nothing
 Someone, somebody, something
 Either and neither.
Because these words refer to only one thing, the verb should take the third person singular
form. In other words, it works like the pronoun ‘it’:
“There are four factors. Each affects the pricing of the product significantly.”
This is still true when there is distance between the subject and verb as we saw earlier:
“Each of the four factors affects the pricing of the product significantly.”
Notice that the verb ‘affect’ takes the third person singular form to agree with ‘each’ rather
than ‘factors’.
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Countability
Another area affecting subject-verb agreement is countability. If a word is uncountable, the
related verb will be in the third person singular form like ‘it’.
For example:
The information in this book is irrelevant. BUT
The students in this class are punctual.
This is still true when quantifiers are used:
All of the information in this book is irrelevant.
All of the students in this class are punctual.
For more on this topic, see the video on countable and uncountable nouns.
This video has introduced you to how to recognise the subject of a sentence, the form of the
subject, and some of the challenges with subject-verb agreement. Now try some of the
exercises below.
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