Nama :
Siti Mardianah
Npm :
16210600
Kelas :
4EA16
Title : UNDERSTANDING AND USING ENGLISH
GRAMMAR
Author : Betty Schrampfer Azar
Publisher : A Division of Simon & Schuster
Englewood Cliffs, New Jersey 07632
Year :
1989
Edition :
Second Editin
Subject and Verb
Agreement
Subject and verb must agree with one another in
number (singular or plural). It means that if the subject is singular, its verb
must also be singular. If the subject is plural, its verb must also be plural.
In the present tense, nouns and verbs are singular if the subject is singular
that the subject can be replaced by pronoun “she, he, it,” the verb must also
be singular by adding “s/es” in the end of the word. The verb does not need
“s/es” if the subject is plural that can be raplaced by “they, we, you” and I”
as pronoun for the first singular person. In this explanation, I will give two
examples for the subject and verb agreement in the present tense statement in
verbal sentence. The first example is about singular subject and verb that is
“Evi goes to campus almost every day”. The word “Evi” is singular subject
because it can be replaced by pronoun “she”. Moreover, the basic verb of “goes”
is “go”. The verb “go” added by “es” because the subject “Evi” is singular so,
it must be singular by adding “es” in the end of it. The second example is
about plural subject and verb that is “Diva and Angel study together after
school”. The word “Diva and Angel” is plural subject because it can be replaced by “they”. So, the verb “study”
must be plural without adding “s/es”in the end of it.
In the nominal simple present tense statement, it
needs “to be” as the verb because there is no verb in the nominal sentence,
there is no word showing action. The using of “to be” must also agree with the subject.
If the subject is singular “she, he, it,” it needs “is” for the “to be”. If the
subject is plural “they, we, you”, it needs “are” for the “to be”. Moreover, if
the subject the first singular person “I”, it needs “am” for the “to be”. Well,
I will give more examples about subject and verb agreement in nominal sentence.
First example is “Ana is a beautiful girl”. The subject “Ana” is a singular
subject that can be replaced by pronoun “she”. So the subject needs to be “is”
as the verb. The next example is “Anwar and Aris are my school mates”. The
subject “Anwar and Aris” can be replaced by “they” that is plural subject, so
it needs to be “are” as the verb of plural form.
In the verbal simple present tense statement, if the
subject is singular that can be replaced by pronoun “she, he, it”, the verb
must be singular by adding “s/es”. To know which verb adds by “s/es”, first we
have to know about verb added by “es” if the subject is singular. The verb
added “es” if it ends with some letters such as “s, o, ch, sh, z, x, y”. I will
give some examples here. The first, the verb “watch” ends with letter “ch”, if
the subject is singular, the verb “watch” must be added by “es”. The example of
the sentence is “Budi watches The Raid 2 brandals with his girlfriend at
cinema. The second, the verb ends with the letter “y” can be added by “s” or
“es” if the subject is singular. The verb ends with letter “y” can be added by
“s” if there is vowel letter before “y” for example the verb “play”. So if the
subject is singular the verb “play” must be added “s”. It can be seen in the
sentence “Herman plays football in the field”. The verb ends with the letter
“y” can be added by “es” if there is consonant letter before “y” such as the
verb “cry”. If the subject is singular, the verb “cry” must be added by “es”
and the letter “y” has to be changed by “I”. It can be seen in the sentence
“the baby cries all night”.
I think that’s the explanation about subject and
verb agreement I understand. Subject and verb must agree with one another in
number (singular or plural). Thus, a singular subject takes a singular verb. A
plural subject takes a plural verb.
