english practical

Question

Which of the following statements about subject-verb agreement is FALSE? a) Words that come between the subject and the verb can affect the subject-verb agreement b) You always takes a plural verb c) When tow subjects are connected by and,the subject is plural and the verb is usually plural d) When subjects are joined by or or nor,the verb agrees with nearer subject

Answer 1

I believe that each of these statements can be argued to be true:

 

• a): Of the four statements you give, I think this one is on the shakiest ground, I guess due to the vagueness of "can affect," and also how one defines/demarcates the subject of a sentence. That is, in something like The miracle of rapid advancements in the agricultural and biological sciences have resulted in greater food production, the technical subject of the sentence is just the singular noun miracle, which happens to be postmodified by a relatively long prepositional phrase headed by of, namely of rapid advancements in the agricultural and biological sciences. Under modern analyses, this long prepositional phrase is still considered to be an element of the single noun phrase, headed by miracle, that is the subject of the sentence, and thus the auxiliary verb have should actually be the singular verb has to agree with miracle, and not have in apparent agreement with (agricultural and) biological sciences. In other words, you could say that all the words from of to sciences "come between" the subject and verb and this "affects" the choice of singular has vs. plural have.
• b): I can't think of any exceptions to this rule, though it should be noted that with some verbs, e.g., modal auxiliaries, all the "singular" forms are identical with the "plurals," e..g., You/I/He/The man/They should/can/must/might do this.
• c): The key word here is usually; yes, this statement makes an observation about English grammar that is normally true, but not always; there are many idioms featuring two nouns joined by and that are nevertheless felt to be such a unity that verbs used with them are very often, if not always, in the singular, e.g., Breaking and entering is considered a crime and Our peace and quiet has been interrupted.
• d): I believe the truth or falsity of this statement hinges on the nor rule. In prescriptive grammar, requiring the verb to agree with the subject after the nor only would be false, e.g., Neither you nor your friend *has/have the ticket, i.e., since logically the meaning is you don't have it and your friend doesn't have it, so the verb "must" be plural. But again, in common, informal English this rule is often "violated," especially--in similar circumstances to what's going on with sentences of the a) variety--when the subject after nor is relatively wordy, e.g., Neither I nor that funny-looking, dorky, long-winded old dude who thinks he knows everything about English grammar is/are always right.