Subject-verb agreement | Syntax | Khan Academy Video Lecture | Complete Course on English Grammar: Upgrade your Speaking & Listening - Personal Skills

hello grammarians today we're going to
talk about subject verb agreement and
what this is is the idea that you want
your subject and your verb to get along
in a sentence what agreement is in
grammar is the art of making sure that
sentence parts connect with one another
in the right way it's making sure you
know the square peg goes in a square
hole right not a square peg in a round
hole square peg in a triangular hole you
want to make sure that the way you make
the way you render your subject fits
with the way you've rendered your verb
so what do I mean by that so let's let's
take the sentence the dog barks so we
have this subject the dog and it is
singular there's one of it and the way
this verb is the word is conjugated the
way this verb is conjugated the way
we've assembled or figured out how the
verb is going to be is also a singular
conjugation oh so we say the dog barks
and not the dog bark right this is not
standard American English like this this
doesn't this does not this is the plural
form you can say the dog's bark right
because there's more than one dog here
and this is there this is the verb this
is the plural form I know it's kind of
strange that the third-person singular
form of a verb ends in S like if English
made sense like it okay if I if I ran
the zoo right like I would want it to
work like this the dogs barks right
because there's an S there's multiple
unfortunately for many weird reasons and
the history of English it doesn't it
didn't work out that way a third-person
singular verb usually ends in an S right
so I talk
that's first person third person is she
talks we eat
that's plural first person they eat see
no s it's only this weird third-person
singular here that's got that S on the
end so if you're trying to if you're
trying to figure out how to make
something agree if you're unsure as
you're writing so if you're looking at a
sentence like the dog's bark and you
can't figure out if it's supposed to be
the dog's bark or the dog barks or the
dogs barks ask yourself first what is
the subject of the sentence so first
find the subject and then ask yourself
is it singular or plural is it s or P is
it Psalter is a pepper and then if you
can remember that then just remember
that singular s usually results in
another s so if it's the dog and that's
singular then you're going to want to
put that s over here so if the subject
isn't a noun but a pronoun same question
is it singular or plural I is singular
there's only one me.we is plural there's
many of us and if it's singular third
person so like she he it ended in an S
another thing to remember is that most
what we call indefinite pronouns are
third-person singular so if you wanted
to ask whether or not anyone knows the
way to San Jose as a question but you're
not sure whether or not it would be does
anyone know the way to San Jose or do
anyone know the way to San Jose well the
word anyone is third-person singular and
although do is an irregular verb we
still kind of hold to the idea the
third-person singular verb ends in an S
so it's as a sound written as an S so we
would say does
so does anyone know as opposed to you
know if it were in the plural do we know
right so does a singular do is plural
now that's kind of the basic idea of
subject verb agreement as you want to
make sure that the number of things in
your subject matches up with the number
in your predicate so as the subject
singular or plural if it's third-person
singular the verb probably ends in an S
even though the third-person singular
noun or pronoun does not you can learn
anything Dave it out