1. English 11 ACT/MME Preparation
Making grammar agree
English 11 ACT/MME Preparation

2. Subject-Verb Agreement
A subject must always agree with its verb.
A singular subject, one that represents a single person, place, or thing, agrees with a singular verb.
A plural subject, on e that represents more than a single person, place, or thing, agrees with a plural verb.
Singular nouns include: boy, girl, mother, father, sister, brother, boat, tent and friend.
Singular pronouns are: he, she, it, I, you
Example: He was on time for the appointment.
Example: The picture costs forty dollars.
Example: That television program interests me.
Underlined = subject Italics = verb

3. Subject-Verb Agreement
Plural nouns include: boys, girls, mothers, fathers, sisters, brothers, boats, tents, and friends.
Plural pronouns include: they, we, you
Example: They represent our group.
Example: The lilacs are in bloom.
Example: These stories were disturbing
Underlined = subject Italics = verb

4. Agreement Involving Prepositional Phrases
Prepositional phrases can affect agreement in number between the sentence’s subject and verb.
The following are examples where the prepositional phrase does not affect the subject-verb agreement.
The prepositional phrase is underlined.
Several videos in this pile are yours.
A plan for the upcoming years is essential.
The children in this bus recall the incident.
The pictures in this hallway remind me of the 1950s.

5. Agreement Involving Prepositional Phrases
When working with indefinite pronouns that can be either singular or plural, such as all, any, most, none, and some, pay attention to the prepositional phrase that follows immediately after the indefinite pronoun.
Examples
All of this cake has been eaten
All, an indefinite pronoun, takes its cue from the object of the preposition, cake, a singular noun. Thus, in this instance, all must be the same number as cake. Therefore, has, a singular verb, agrees with all.
All of the cakes have been eaten.
All, an indefinite pronoun, takes its cue from the object of the preposition, cakes, a plural noun. Thus all must be plural to agree with the object of the preposition, cakes, and the plural verb, have.

6. Indefinite Pronoun Agreement
The word to which a pronoun refers to or replaces is its antecedent.
The antecedent usually comes before the pronoun.
The following are singular pronouns. Therefore, they require a singular antecedent and a singular verb.
One
Someone, somebody
Anyone, anybody, anything
No one, nobody, neither
Everyone, everybody, each, either, everything

7. Indefinite Pronoun Agreement
Example
Somebody in our class has lost his (or her) ring.
Somebody, a singular pronoun, the sentence’s subject and the pronoun’s antecedent, must agree with his [or her], the antecedent’s pronoun. Their, a plural pronoun, would be incorrect since the antecedent, somebody, is singular.
Use he, his, and him when the antecedent is clearly masculine. Do the same with she, her, and hers with the antecedent is clearly feminine. Use it or its when the antecedent is neither masculine nor feminine.
If a word clearly means “more than one,” such as “Everyone clapped when they heard the news,” use the plural pronoun, they, since the sentence indicates that more than a single person clapped.

8. Compound Subjects
When compound (two or more) subjects are joined by the conjunctions either and or, OR neither and nor the verb agrees with the noun or pronoun closer to it.
Examples:
Either the boy or his mother represents the family at gatherings.
Either the boy or his sisters represent the family at gatherings.
Neither the sisters nor Ken represents the family at gatherings.
Neither Ken nor his parents represent the family at gatherings.

9. Compound Subjects
If the parts of a compound subject are joined by the conjunctions both and and, the verb must be plural.
Examples
Billy and Frankie were reading the same article.
Jim, Karen, and Maureen were cutting their lawns.
Sir Arthur Conan Doyle and Jane Austen are my teacher’s favorite authors.

10. Regular Verbs and Tense
Present Tense – action that is going on now (walks)
Past Tense – action that already occurred (walked)
Future - action that will take place (will walk)
Present Perfect – action that was completed at some other time or action that started in the past and continues now. (have walked)
Past Perfect – action that occurred before another past action (had walked)
Future Perfect – action that will be completed by some given time in the future (will have walked)