Agreement in sentences
Ensure subject-verb agreement and pronoun-antecedent agreement within and across sentences
What a learner can do afterwards
- Correct 'The group of children were laughing' to 'The group of children was laughing' and explain the singular subject
- Choose the correct pronoun in 'Each student must bring ____ (his or her / their) book' and explain the antecedent link
- Identify and fix three agreement errors in a short paragraph, explaining each correction
1 · Read
You already know a verb has to match its subject. Some subjects look like a crowd, but they act like one single thing. Words like team, group, class, and family name a whole bunch of people, but the word itself is singular. In this lesson, treat each group word as one unit. When you point back to one group, use it or its, as in the team won its game.
The group of children was laughing. Group is the subject, and it names one group, so the verb is was, not were, even though there are many children inside it.
The trick shows up with pronouns. Words like each, everyone, and every student are singular too. When they mean one person at a time, use his, her, or their when you do not know who. When each means one animal, thing, or group at a time, as in Each of the dogs, use its.
Each student must bring their book. Each student is singular, and their points back to one student at a time. Must stays the same with one or many, so it does not change here.
When you check a sentence, find the true subject first. Ask: does this word name one whole thing, like team or each, or many separate things? Then match the verb and any pronoun to that answer.
In this lesson, treat group words and each/every words as one, so match the verb and pronoun to that one, not to the crowd hiding inside.
More to read
Subject-verb agreement
Every sentence needs two important parts: a subject and a verb. The subject is who or what the sentence is about. The verb tells what the subject does.
Subject-verb agreement means the subject and verb have to match. If the subject is one person or thing (singular), the verb needs a singular form too. If the subject is more than one (plural), the verb needs a plural form.
For example: "The dog runs" (one dog, singular verb). "The dogs run" (many dogs, plural verb). Watch out, because most singular verbs in the present tense end in -s, while plural verbs usually don't.
Tricky cases of subject-verb agreement
Every sentence needs a subject and a verb, and they have to match in number. That part is easy, until you meet a collective noun!
A collective noun names a group of people or things, like team, class, family, or group. Even though a group has many members, in American English we treat it as one single thing. That means it gets a singular verb.
So we say: "The group of children was laughing," not "were laughing." It might feel strange, since "children" is plural, but the real subject is "group," and "group" is singular. Try swapping in "it": "It was laughing" sounds right, so "was" is the correct verb.
Prepositional phrases and subject-verb agreement
A prepositional phrase is a group of words that starts with a preposition (like in, on, of, with) and ends with a noun. It gives extra details, like "in Australia" or "of the cabinet."
Prepositional phrases often sit right between the subject and the verb, and that can trick you into picking the wrong verb.
Example: "The keys to the cabinet are missing." The subject is "keys," not "cabinet." Cross out the prepositional phrase "to the cabinet" and the sentence becomes simple: "The keys are missing." Now it's easy to see that "keys" is plural, so it needs the plural verb "are."
Pronoun-antecedent agreement
Pronoun-antecedent agreement is a rule that says a pronoun and its antecedent (the noun it replaces) must match in number.
Incorrect: "Cranberries are sour, so people rarely eat it unsweetened." Correct: "Cranberries are sour, so people rarely eat them unsweetened."
In both sentences, the pronoun stands in for the noun "cranberries." Since "cranberries" is plural, the pronoun that replaces it must be plural too, which is why "them" is correct instead of "it."
Pronoun case, person, and number
A pronoun is a word that takes the place of a noun, like he, she, it, or they. Using pronouns helps you avoid repeating the same word over and over.
An antecedent is the noun that the pronoun refers back to. For example, in "Maria grabbed her backpack," the word "her" is a pronoun, and "Maria" is its antecedent.
A pronoun always has to agree with its antecedent in number. If the antecedent is singular (one person or thing), the pronoun must be singular too. If the antecedent is plural, the pronoun must be plural too. That's the same rule that tells you to pick "his, her, or their" for "each student," since "each student" is singular.
2 · Watch
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Where it sits
Where this leads
Jobs that lean on this skill. Follow one to see everything it is built on.
24 questions wait behind this lesson, each with its answer explained. Every answer feeds the sky: stars light as they are learned, and dim when it is time to come back.