Download Subject-Verb Agreement

The Sentence & Parts of Speech
The Sentence
In English, a sentence—also known as an independent or main clause—needs a subject and verb, and it should
express a complete thought.
Example:
I
subject
graduated recently from Ashford University.
verb
complete thought
Subject
A subject indicates who or what is being talked about in a given sentence as well as who or what is doing the
action. It is the noun form that comes before the verb (the action), but it is not always the first word in a
sentence.
Verb
A verb is an action word that indicates what the subject does in a given sentence. However, verbs can also
indicate actions we cannot see (or “states of being”), such as think, believe, love, hope, feel, dream, exist, etc.
Complete Thought
The complete thought finishes what the sentence is about, adding necessary or extra information at the end.
Parts of Speech
Noun
A noun names a person (Joe, mom, mailman), place (eg. New York, Sea World, post office), or thing (laptop,
honesty, swimming, dog grooming, shoes).
Pronoun
A pronoun replaces a noun in a given sentence. There are various types of pronouns: subject (I, you, he, she, it,
we, they), object pronouns (me, you, him, her, it, us, them), Possessive pronouns (mine, yours, his, hers, its,
ours, yours, theirs), Reflexive (myself, yourself, himself, herself, itself, ourselves, yourselves, themselves),
demonstrative (this, that, these, those), indefinite (someone, something, anything, anyone, nothing, everyone),
and relative (who, that, which, when, where, why).
Adjective
Adjectives describe nouns. Examples: Turkish coffee, one-year-old bulldog, tired baby, Fran’s expensive car.
Adverb
Adverbs describe verbs or other adjectives. Examples: snore loudly, arrived late, very handsome, quite nice.
Article
There are two types: definite (the) and indefinite (a/an). As a rule thumb, “the”—used with singular and plural
nouns—refers to a specific noun. “A/An”—used with only singular countable nouns—refer to a generic noun.
Example: I bought a banana yesterday. (The speaker bought one banana.)
Example: Sarah’s dog ended up eating the banana. (Her dog ate a specific banana: the one the speaker bought.)
Preposition
Prepositions link nouns, pronouns, and phrases in a sentence. Usually, they indicate direction, location, or time.
Examples: to the airport, from the park, on the desk, in her car, at midnight, for their 50th anniversary.