The highly irregular verb is the only verb with more coherence than this one in the present: as subjects, the following pronouns take singular verbs always. Look at them carefully. You can check the verb by replacing the pronoun for the compound subject. The difficulty is that some indefinite pronouns sound plural when they are truly singular. SUBJECT-VERBE RULE #1 Two or more singular (or plural) subjects that are linked by a pluralistic composite subject and act as subjects of plural compound and adopt a plural (singular – singular – plural). Remember: here are constructions, search for the subject AFTER the verb and choose a singular or plural verb to agree with the subject. AgreementThe correct grammatical correspondence between words and phrases is made. In language and writing refers to the correct grammatical correspondence between words and sentences. Sentence parts must coincide To match parts of the language in number, case, sex or person, or with other parts, in number, number, in person, in case and in sex. Since subjects and verbs are either singular or plural, the subject of a sentence and the verb of a sentence must correspond in the number. That is, a singular subject belongs to a singular form of verb, and a plural subject belongs to a plural form. For more information on topics and verbs, see section 1.1 “Sentence Letter.” SUBJECT-VERBE RULE #2 Two or more singular subjects that are linked by or (or not) as a single compound subject and therefore use a single verb to accept. Worse, this rule will be with the conjunction “or” vice versa: “Julius Caesar or Augustus Caesar would be the first Roman emperor.” As it is either “Julius” or “Augustus”, the subject is singular – one or one is always one – and therefore there is a -s on the verb.

If “or” joins a singular and a plural subject, the verb agrees with greater precision: “The Senate, or later the Senate, and the galleries, we see that they controlled republican Rome, according to most Roman historians.” Here, the plural subject (“tribunes”) is closer to the verb and therefore the verb is plural (“are”). On the other hand, when the subject approaches, the verb agrees with him: “The Senate and the tribunes, or once only the Senate, we see that it controlled republican Rome, according to most Roman historians.” The singular subject (“Senate”) is closer to the verb which, as a result, is singular (“est”). By reading or writing, you may come across a sentence that contains an expression or clause that separates the subject from the verb. Often, preposition phrases or dependent clauses add more information to the sentence and appear between the subject and the verb. However, the subject and the verb have yet to agree. What if one part of the composite subject is singular and the other part is plural? The rest of this teaching unit examines the problems of agreement that may result from the placement of words in sentences. There are four main problems: prepositional sentences, clauses that start with who, this, or who, sentences that start here or there, and questions.