16 Introduction
BEFORE YOU START THIS CHAPTER
Let’s start the discussion of subject-verb agreement by examining a sentence. I think you’ll find this sentence a little weird — a little “off.”
My new shirt have red stripes on it.
Read that sentence again, carefully and out loud. I bet you think it sounds “wrong,” and if you have a close look at the sentence, I bet you’ll identify one word in particular that is causing the problem.
My new shirt have red stripes on it.
It’s that verb! Have doesn’t seem to fit in this sentence, and here’s why.
The subject of the sentence (shirt) is singular. The verb, however, is in its plural form (have).[1] One is singular, and the other is plural. In a discussion of grammar, we’d say that there’s a problem here because the subject and verb do not agree.
What does “agree” mean?
When we say that a verb doesn’t agree with its subject, we’re usually saying that they aren’t the same in terms of number: one of them is singular and the other is plural. To agree with one another, the subject and verb both need to be singular, or they both need to be plural, as in the following sentences.
NOTE: This topic of subject-verb agreement is very complex, but for the most part, it will only come up in sentences written in present tense, and in third person.
PRACTICE: Choose the verb that agrees with the subject.
- Verbs have different forms, including singular forms and plural forms. For regular verbs, the plural is simply the base form (eg., play), and the singular form ends in an "s" (eg., plays) ↵
Third person writing refers to people and things who are not the writer nor the reader. It uses pronouns like "he, "she," "they," and "it."