...Subject-Verb Agreement Basic Principle: Singular subjects need singular verbs; plural subjects need plural verbs. My brother is a nutritionist. My sisters are mathematicians. See the section on Plurals for additional help with subject-verb agreement. The indefinite pronouns anyone, everyone, someone, no one, nobody are always singular and, therefore, require singular verbs. • Everyone has done his or her homework. • Somebody has left her purse. Some indefinite pronouns — such as all, some — are singular or plural depending on what they're referring to. (Is the thing referred to countable or not?) Be careful choosing a verb to accompany such pronouns. • Some of the beads are missing. • Some of the water is gone. On the other hand, there is one indefinite pronoun, none, that can be either singular or plural; it often doesn't matter whether you use a singular or a plural verb — unless something else in the sentence determines its number. (Writers generally think of none as meaning not any and will choose a plural verb, as in "None of the engines are working," but when something else makes us regard none as meaning not one, we want a singular verb, as in "None of the food is fresh.") • None of you claims responsibility for this incident? • None of you claim responsibility for this incident? • None of the students have done their homework. (In this last example, the word their precludes the use of the singular verb. Some indefinite pronouns are particularly...
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...S--Vi--(Adv.) (Subject--Intransitive Verb--Adverb, usually optional) The man coughed (loudly). The audience laughed. The guest has arrived. The children walked down the street. The waiter hurried away from the door. Note: An intransitive verb is an action verb that does not require a direct object or a complement to complete its meaning. The word "intransitive" literally means "does not carry across." Therefore, the action of the verb does not transfer to an object, that is, a person or thing that receives the action of the verb. Often, adverbs or adverb phrases will appear in these sentences to expand the basic meaning of the verb. Note: Some intransitive verbs can take a direct object in a different sentence. Usually the meaning of the verb changes in a sentence requiring a direct object. Here is an example: He runs every morning. (intransitive verb) He runs a successful business. (transitive verb) SENTENCE PATTERNS: SAMPLES 2. Transitive Verb Patterns (Active Voice) A. S--Vtr--DO (Subject + Transitive Verb + Direct Object) The dog catches the ball. The baby likes bananas. Dogs chase cats. That man teaches English. The scientist performed an experiment. Note: Some verbs require an adverb with this pattern. S--Vtr--DO--Adv. (Subject + Transitive Verb + Direct Object + Adverb) The guard put the key in the door. The police treated the old man politely. B. S--Vtr--IO--DO (Subject + Transitive Verb + Indirect Object...
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... Period C 14 January 2016 Paragraphs on Word Types An action verb is a verb that tells what action someone or something is performing. An action verb can be either a physical (kick, play) or mental verb (think, like). Action verbs can also be ten of the twelve linking verbs except (became or seem). Action verbs can be either a transitive verb or an intransitive verb. The way you answer this question is by asking “what” right after the action verb. Helping verbs can also help the action verb indicate a tense or possibility (might eat, had ate). Linking verbs are verbs that connect a word at or near the beginning of a sentence. Most common linking verbs are in the form of be (am, are, is, was, were, be, being, been, etc.). Other linking verbs include appear, seem, look, feel, etc. These verbs are usually mistaken for action verbs. This is why you replace the verb for is, am, or are and if it makes sense it is a linking verb, if not then it is an action verb. In order for it to be a linking verb an adjective or noun must come after the verb. Helping verbs are verbs that can be added to another verb to make a single verb phrase (shall sleep, can cook). Helping verbs must work with the main verb and subject in tense. The helping verb shows possibility but remember if the verb and subject or main verb are not in agreement then it is not a helping verb. Simon 2 The complete subjects includes a noun or pronoun that names the person, place, or thing ...
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...Self Teaching Unit: Subject - Verb Agreement © 2000, 1978 Margaret L. Benner All rights reserved. Although you are probably already familiar with basic subject-verb agreement, this chapter begins with a quick review of basic agreement rules. Subjects and verbs must AGREE with one another in number (singular or plural). Thus, if a subject is singular, its verb must also be singular; if a subject is plural, its verb must also be plural. In the present tense, nouns and verbs form plurals in opposite ways: nouns ADD an s to the singular form; verbs REMOVE the s from the singular form. These agreement rules do not apply to verbs used in the simple past tense without any helping verbs. The agreement rules do, however, apply to the following helping verbs when they are used with a main verb: is-are, was-were, has-have, does-do. The agreement rules do not apply to has-have when used as the SECOND helping verb in a pair. They do NOT apply to any other helping verbs, such as can, could, shall, should, may, might, will, would, must. The subject-verb agreement rules apply to all personal pronouns except I and you, which, although SINGULAR, require PLURAL forms of verbs. Now click on the link below to do exercise 1. Link to Exercise 1 The remainder of this teaching unit deals with some more advanced subject-verb agreement rules and with exceptions to...
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...Personal | Used to refer to the speaker, or to one or more to or about whom or which he or she is speaking. Ex) I, you, ours, theirs, we, etc. | 9) Reflexive | Referring to the subject of the sentence, clause, or verbal phrase in which it stands. Ex)Myself, itself, herself, himself, etc. | 10) Demonstrative | Points to specific things: this, that, these, and those. | 11) Relative | A pronoun that can introduce a subordinate clause. Examples are, who, whose, whom, which, what, and, that | 12) Indefinite | All, another, anybody. | 13) Subject | Is used in the subject of a sentence and after a linking verb. | 14) Object | Is used after an action verb or a preposition. | 15) Possessive | Is used to show ownership of something. | 16) Antecedent | Is a word to which a pronoun refers. | 17) Subordinate Clause | It serves as an adjective and it modifies a word, or antecedent in the main clause. | 18) Adjective | A word that modify a noun or pronoun. It answers the questions, Which one? What kind? How many? How much? | 19) Descriptive | Adds detail or description to a noun. | 20) Limiting | Does not add much detail to a noun. | 21) Proper | Formed from a proper noun. | 22) Predicate | Follows a linking verb and modifies the subject of the sentence. | 23) Comparative |...
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...College English Name: ________________________ The 20 Rules of Subject Verb Agreement in Standard English (1-4) 1. Subjects and verbs must agree in number. This is the cornerstone rule that forms the background of the concept. The dog growls when he is angry. The dogs growl when they are angry. 2. Don’t get confused by the words that come between the subject and verb; they do not affect agreement. The dog, who is chewing on my jeans, is usually very good. 3. Prepositional phrases between the subject and verb usually do not affect agreement. The colors of the rainbow are beautiful. 4. When sentences start with “there” or “here,” the subject will always be placed after the verb, so care needs to be taken to identify it correctly. There is a problem with the balance sheet. Here are the papers you requested. Day 1 – Determine whether or not the following sentences are correct. If they are incorrect, make the necessary adjustments. 1. There are extra butter in the refrigerator. 2. My mother, along with the other representatives, are going to the convention. 3. A player on the Vikings are going to sign autographs at the mall this Saturday. 4. My sister eat paste. 5. This Tuesday, John, as well as his friends, is driving to the rock concert. 6. Runners on the team is being tested for performance enhancing drugs. 7. Dad and mom yells at me when I play my music too loud. 8. Here are a plate of Oreo cookies. 9. There are a box for you to pack your things in. 10. Finally, this...
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...follow the description of a game. Similarly, those who wish to speak and write standard English must master the concepts that we will cover ahead. 3 Section 1: The Sentence The basic unit of speech and writing is the sentence. A sentence is a series of words that form a complete thought, for example: Birds fly. Samuel Johnson's father ran a bookstore. My two black cats enjoy lazing in the sun. A complete sentence has two main parts: subject and predicate. 1.1 The Subject When we speak or write, we speak or write about something. The subject is what is being spoken about. For example: Birds fly. (the subject is "birds") 4 Samuel Johnson's father ran a bookstore. (the subjet is "Samuel Johnson's father.") My two black cats enjoy lazing in the sun. (the subject is "My cats.") The main word in the subject (usually a noun) is called the simple subject. The main word with all the words that describe it is called the complete subject. For example, in the second sentence above, the simple subject is "father." The complete...
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...1) SIMPLE FUTURE TENSE: Meaning: It indicates an action or event which is to be take place in future. Here formula for future tense is as follows: SUBJECT+HELPING VERB+VERB1+OBJECT Here helping verbs are ‘SHALL’ followed with ‘I’ or ‘WE’ and ‘WILL’ followed with ‘THEY’ ,‘HE’ ,‘SHE’ ,‘YOU’ ,’IT’. E.g.: I shall buy a car tomorrow. In the above example, helping verb is ‘shall’ followed with ‘I’. To make it interrogative, the formula is as follows: HELPING VERB+SUBJECT+VERB1+OBJECT+? To make it negative, the formula is as follows: SUBJECT+HELPING VERB+’NOT’+VERB1+OBJECT * He will deactivate his bank account tomorrow. (N) He will not deactivate his bank account tomorrow. (I) Will he deactivate his bank account tomorrow? 2) FUTURE CONTINUOUS TENSE: Meaning: It is used to indicate an action which will be going on in future at certain time. Here formula for future tense is as follows: SUBJECT+HELPING VERB+VERB+ING+OBJECT Here helping verbs are ‘SHALL’ and ‘WILL’. E.g.: They will be enjoying new year eve this 31st December. In the above example, helping verb is ‘I’. To make it interrogative, the formula is as follows: HELPING VERB+SUBJECT+VERB1+OBJECT+? To make it negative, the formula is as follows: SUBJECT+HELPING VERB+’NOT’+VERB1+OBJECT * He will be doing exercise in morning. (N) He will not be doing exercise in morning. (I) Will he be doing exercise in morning...
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...9 SUBJECT-VERB AGREEMENT RULES FOR SUBJECT-VERB AGREEMENT RULE 1 – A verb agrees with its subject in number. Singular subjects take singular verbs: The car stays in the garage. The flower smells good. There is an old saying: “Opposites attract.” The rule for singular and plural verbs is just the opposite of the rule for singular and plural nouns. Remember this when you match subjects and verbs. You might guess that stays and smells are plural verbs because they end in s. They aren’t. Both stays and smells are singular verbs. RULE 2 – The number of the subject (singular or plural) is not changed by words that come between the subject and the verb. One of the eggs is broken. Of the eggs is a prepositional phrase. The subject one and the verb is are both singular. Mentally omit the prepositional phrase to make the subject verb-agreement easier to make. SUBJECT-VERB AGREEMENT EXERCISE 1 Direction: Circle the correct verb in each of the sentences below. Check your answers on the following page. 1. Your friend (talk-talks) too much. 2. The man with the roses (look-looks) like your brother. 3. The women in the pool (swim-swims) well. 4. Bill (drive-drives) a cab. 5. The football players (run-runs) five miles every day. 6. That red-haired lady in the fur hat (live-lives) across the street. 7. He (cook-cooks) dinner for his family. 8. The boys (walk-walks) to school every day. 9. The weather on the coast (appear-appears) to be good this weekend. 10. The center on the basketball team (bounce-bounces)...
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...Argument Structure in the Verb Phrase (VP) The verb is the head of the VP, that is to say that the verb is the most important part that determines the presence of any other element in the VP. There are different classes of verbs according to the type of event they refer to. Verbs can refer to actions (such as break) or states (such as stand), processes (such as grow), achievements (such as reach), etc. Each event implies the involvement of role players. We therefore say that the verb assigns roles (we call them thematic roles, or theta-roles) to its arguments (the role players). According to the type of event referred to, the verb is combined with a number of arguments (including complements and the subject) that goes from zero to three (rarely four). For each verb the information specified in the lexicon includes a) the type of verb, b) the thematic roles that are assigned to its arguments, c) what is the hierarchy of the arguments (with the associated theta-role), d) whether they assign case to one or more arguments. It is crucial when learning a foreign language to realize that while the meaning of the verb, namely the event type and, as a consequence, the theta-roles assigne by it can be the same in L1 (our native language) and L2 (our foreign language), the hierarchy of the arguments may be very different. Let us make a very well-known example of the Italian – English contrast: (1) a. b. John likes potatoes. A Gianni piacciono le patate. Like and piacere express the same...
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...if the statement is true, F if is false, then overwrite the underlined and highlighted word/phrase with the right one to make the statement correct. ______ 1. A verb is a word that expresses action, state of being, or the fact that something exists in a given time and which is always found in the predicate of a sentence. ---------- 2. An action verb tells what a subject of the sentence does which may either be visible (physical) or mental. ______ 3. ’Remember’, ‘honor’, ‘prefer’, ‘excel’ and ‘regarded’ are examples of visible (physical) actions verbs. ______ 4. An action verb is intransitive if it directs action toward someone or something named in the same sentence and which can be identified if answer can be found by asking ‘whom?’ or ‘what?’ after the verb. ---------- 5. A helping verb links, or connects, the subject to the predicate and that which implies a state of being or condition for the subject. ______ 6. Little words such as ‘am’, ‘is’, ‘are’, ‘was’, ‘were’, ‘be’, ‘been’ and some seemingly action verbs such as ‘seems’, ‘feels’, ‘tastes’ are examples of linking verbs. ______ 7.Auxiliary verbs accompany the main verb, helping out to understand what specific action is taking place, but alone, they do not tell us very much. II. Identification. A. Direction: Underline the verb in each item; and on the lines to the left, write T for transitive or I for intransitive. (5 pts.) ________ 1. They searched for hours, but there was no sign of her...
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...Gerund and Infinitive Phrases Gerunds and Infinitives are both verbals. A verbal is a word formed from a verb but functioning as a different part of speech, usually a noun. Gerunds are formed when an “-ing” ending is added to a verb, and every infinitive is composed of “to” plus a verb. When grouped with modifiers, gerunds and infinitives form verbal phrases that perform the function of nouns. Using Gerunds in a Sentence In the examples below, the gerund appears in italics and the main verb appears in bold. Gerund as subject Because gerunds act as nouns, they can take any role that a noun would usually take in a sentence. The most obvious role is the gerund as subject, in which the sentence is about an action: Ex. Waking up early is always difficult. Waking up early is the gerund phrase that forms the subject of the main verb is. Gerund as a direct object A gerund or gerund phrase can also be the object of a verb, making it the recipient of an action Ex. Usually, my problem is staying up too late. Staying up too late is the gerund phrase that functions as the object of the main verb is. Gerund as the object of a preposition Ex. Michael Phelps won the gold medal by training every day. Training every day is the object of the preposition by and separate from the main verb won. Although gerund phrases do not require commas, if we were to rearrange our last example, a comma would be necessary. Ex. By training every day, Michael Phelps won the gold medal. It is important to remember...
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...respective teacher Md. Shayeekh-Us-Saleheen Assistant professor of English language and liturature Department of Humanities UNIVERSITY OF LIBERAL ARTS BANGLADESH Dhanmondi, Dhaka. Subject: Submission of a report on Tense. Dear Sir, We would like to inform you that we have completed the preparation of our presentation on Tense. We made the assignment successfully .we tried our best to prepare this report. We expect your sympathetic consideration. In these circumstances, we pray and hope that you would be satisfied on our report. Obediently yours, Md. Ashiqur Rahman ID: 111011177 Md. Syed Foysal Alam ID: 111011200 TABLE OF CONTENT Serial no. | Topics | Page no. | 0102030405060708091011121314 | Present indefinite tensePresent continuous tensePresent perfect tensePresent perfect continuous tenseComparison between present perfect and present continuous tense.Past indefinite tense Past continuous tensePast perfect tensePast perfect continuous tenseFuture indefinite tenseFuture continuous tenseFuture perfect tenseFuture perfect continuousConclusion | 060708+0909+101112+131415161718192021 | Simple Present Tense The tense which is used to express action like universal truth, havitual fact, general statement etc is called simple present tense. Structure: Subject+present form of main...
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...sentence is a group of words that are put together to mean something. A sentence is the basic unit of language which expresses a complete thought. It does this by following the grammatical rules of syntax. A complete sentence has at least a subject and a main verb to state a complete thought. The first word of a written sentence has a capital letter, and at the end of the sentence there is a full stop or full point. The sentence consists of: subject + verb + object or (preposition + noun) 2.1 Sentence Structure * The basic unit of grammar is the clause. All clauses have at least two parts: a noun phrase (subject) and a verb phrase. clause = subject + verb We can join two or more clauses together to make a sentence. Example: (subject) (verb) (verb) (subject) Although the method improved accuracy, it caused a significant increase in computation time. * There are two types of clause: main clause (independent clause) and subordinate clause (dependent clause): (1) Main clause (Independent clause) A main clause contains a subject and a verb that has a tense that expresses a complete thought. It can make sense as a sentence by itself as the underlined clause shows below. A main clause is formed with subject + verb. Example: Although the method improved accuracy, it caused a significant increase in computation time. (2)...
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...University Press, l975) to which I am much indebted. For a longer study read Randolph Quirk and Sidney Greenbaum, A University Grammar of English (London: Longman, 1973) and for a very detailed, very complex (and very expensive) treatment of the subject see Randolph Quirk, Sidney Greenbaum, Geoffrey Leech and Jan Svartik, A Comprehensive Grammar of the English Language (London: Longman, 1985). 2 PARTS OF A WORD A word can be divided into its STEM (the basic part of the word containing its meaning) and its INFLECTIONS (the endings added to indicate such things as that a noun is PLURAL or a verb is in the past tense). Examples: Stem: Inflections: PARTS OF A SENTENCE SUBJECT The subject is the person, thing or topic which the sentence deals with. To discover the subject, ask who or what before the verb, e.g. in the sentence The house stands on the hill, what stands on the hill? Answer: the house. Examples: The house stands on the hill. It overlooks the plain. PREDICATE The predicate is all of the sentence except the subject. Examples: The house stands on the hill. It overlooks the plain. OBJECT The object is the person, thing or topic upon which the subject carries out the action of the verb. To discover the object, ask who or what after the verb, e.g. the house overlooks what? Answer: the plain. Examples: The house overlooks the plain. I see him clearly. He watches himself carefully. dog walk s in dogs ed in walked In some cases a whole clause...
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