Language Arts - Punctuation
[ Cross-Curricular ]    [ Punctuation ]    [ Parts of Speech ]    [ Word Analysis ]    [ Miscellaneous ]    [ Home ]   
FEATURED VIDEOS:

Language Arts - Punctuation - Subject-Verb Agreement

Subject-Verb Agreement

In this lesson we are going to look at subjects and verbs. Consider these sentences: 


  He cooks on weekends.

  They cook on weekends.
In the first sentence the subject is singular and so the verb ends with an -s or -es (providing that it is a regular verb). In the second sentence the subject is plural and so there is no -s or -es at the end of the verb.

When the subject is about more than one noun, do not add -s or -es to the verb. When the subject is about only one noun, add -s or -es to the verb. These two rules apply to regular verbs only. We will discuss irregular verbs after examining these examples: 


1)  The birds (eat/eats) the seed.
	SUBJECT: plural		ANSWER: eat

2)  The mouse (run/runs) on the roof.
	SUBJECT: singular	ANSWER: runs

3)  Jill (eat/eats) her lunch.
	SUBJECT: singular	ANSWER: eats

4)  They (want/wants) to help.
	SUBJECT: plural		ANSWER: want

5)  Jack and Jill (jump/jumps) on the box.
	SUBJECT: plural		ANSWER: jump
When dealing with irregular verbs you just have to know which form to use since there are no rules. Here are some examples: 

  She has presents for you.

  They have presents for you.
Here's another example: 

  They are going to read many books.

  Jill is going to read many books.
It can be a little more difficult to recognize proper subject-verb agreement when working with irregular verbs such as has-have and is-are.

Click to continue to quiz.

[ Cross-Curricular ]    [ Punctuation ]    [ Parts of Speech ]    [ Word Analysis ]    [ Miscellaneous ]    [ Home ]