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Subject-Verb Agreement

The fundamental rule of subject/verb agreement is that verbs must agree with, or match, their subjects. This means that singular subjects must go with singular verbs, and plural subjects must go with plural verbs. For example:

The roast chicken tastes like duck. (singular subject and verb)

The vegetables taste fresh. (plural subject and verb)

Notice in these examples how the -s on a verb marks a singular form, while the -s on a subject marks a plural form. Chapter 11 explains in more detail how the addition of -schanges the number of both nouns and verbs. Be sure you understand how final -s works before you study the more complicated subject-verb agreement challenges in Chapter 12.

Chapter 12 gives you practice with:

• making subjects and verbs agree in the present tenses and in situations requiring a choice betweenwas and were
• identifying subjects that are hard to find
• choosing between singular and plural verbs when it is difficult to tell whether the subject is singular or plural.