Subject-Verb Agreement With Intervening Material

Intervening Material--Material that is surrounded

 by commas (or followed by a comma if used as an 

opener) and can be "plucked out" of a sentence 

without harming the "realness" of the sentence. 



How can you determine subject-verb agreement when "intervening material" is present. First of all, you have to determine if the info is really "intervening material" or is absolutely needed for the sentence. I tell my students that if it is surrounded by commas (or should be!), it usually means that it is "dropped into the sentence" and can be "plucked out" without harming the "realness" of the sentence. 

Thus, place mental parenthesis around this intervening material (especially prepositional phrases) and match your verb with the remaining subject (ignoring the intervening material).

1. She, along with others, was coming for dinner.
1. SHE, (along with others), WAS coming for dinner.

2. They, with their dog, are going to be here at ten.
2. THEY, (with their dog), ARE going to be here at ten.

3. One person, out of all ten, seems to care.
3. ONE PERSON, (out of all ten), SEEMS to care.

This is hard to do--and at times the sentence will sound incorrect. However, it is the proper way to reconcile subject-verb agreement with intervening material.

Have a "good grammar" day! :)

day 60: understood subject

You have been learning the characteristics of a subject and a verb. There are unique subjects, however, as well as unique verbs.

You have already learned that the sentence’s main subject has the following characteristics:

1. It is usually in the first part of the
   sentence (the subject part of the sentence as opposed to the predicate part).
2. It is usually a noun or pronoun.
3. It is the word that the whole sentence is about.
4.  It is the word that tells who or what did the verb.
   
                                

However, what do you do if a sentence does not appear to contain a subject?

For example, what is the subject in this “sentence”:

Learn your subjects well.

In the sentence that you examined above, it looks like there is no subject!

In this sentence, the subject is you! The sentence is really saying You learn your subjects well.

Sometimes sentences that are direct commands or parts of conversations do not have a subject written down, but the writer intends for the subject to be an understood you.

  This is called the understood subject.

           
Sentences with understood subjects have the following characteristics:

    1. They do not have the subject
written.  Examples:

                                  1) Do not forget to write to Grandma.

                                      a) Who should not forget?

                                      b) You

                                  2) Try to be a light in your home.
                                      a) Who should try to be a light?
                                      b) You!

        2. They are often commands of some type. For
               example: Get off the furniture!

         3. They usually begin with the verb of the
sentence: Water the plants.

          4. Sometimes they can begin with adverbs:
Carefully water the plants.

day 59: understood subject

You have been learning the characteristics of a subject and a verb. There are unique subjects, however, as well as unique verbs.

You have already learned that the sentence’s main subject has the following characteristics:

1. It is usually in the first part of the
   sentence (the subject part of the sentence as opposed to the predicate part).
2. It is usually a noun or pronoun.
3. It is the word that the whole sentence is about.
4.  It is the word that tells who or what did the verb.
   
                                

However, what do you do if a sentence does not appear to contain a subject?

For example, what is the subject in this “sentence”:

Learn your subjects well.

In the sentence that you examined above, it looks like there is no subject!

In this sentence, the subject is you! The sentence is really saying You learn your subjects well.

Sometimes sentences that are direct commands or parts of conversations do not have a subject written down, but the writer intends for the subject to be an understood you.

  This is called the understood subject.

           
Sentences with understood subjects have the following characteristics:

    1. They do not have the subject
written.  Examples:

                                  1) Do not forget to write to Grandma.

                                      a) Who should not forget?

                                      b) You

                                  2) Try to be a light in your home.
                                      a) Who should try to be a light?
                                      b) You!

        2. They are often commands of some type. For
               example: Get off the furniture!

         3. They usually begin with the verb of the
sentence: Water the plants.

          4. Sometimes they can begin with adverbs:
Carefully water the plants.

 

day 56: action verb pop quiz answer key

Find the action verbs (those that are infinitives—to plus a verb and those that are action verbs without to. Remember—a sentence can have many action verbs throughout it.

1. Joshua and Jonathan drove to the church early, opened the doors, and began shooting hoops.
2. Ray went to work early since he wanted to be home in time to go to basketball practice with Jacob that evening.
3. Since the regular coach attended a meeting that day, Josiah coached the kids with enthusiasm.
4. Kayla went to work right away, meeting people and helping where ever she was needed.
5. Donna loved to write, edit, and teach.
6. Kids tend to laugh loudly, play rough, and jump around when the weather starts dumping rain too many days in a row.
7. She was going to cook the meal, clean the dining room, and pay bills, but her novel was calling her name.
8. They did not want to be late arriving since they were about to perform a very important piece.

day 55: action verb pop quiz!

Are you ready to see how good you are at finding action verbs? Time for another pop quiz!

Find the action verbs (those that are infinitives—to plus a verb and those that are action verbs without to. Remember—a sentence can have many action verbs throughout it.

1. Joshua and Jonathan drove to the church early, opened the doors, and began shooting hoops.
2. Ray went to work early since he wanted to be home in time to go to basketball practice with Jacob that evening.
3. Since the regular coach attended a meeting that day, Josiah coached the kids with enthusiasm.
4. Kayla went to work right away, meeting people and helping where ever she was needed.
5. Donna loved to write, edit, and teach.
6. Kids tend to laugh loudly, play rough, and jump around when the weather starts dumping rain too many days in a row.
7. She was going to cook the meal, clean the dining room, and pay bills, but her novel was calling her name.
8. They did not want to be late arriving since they were about to perform a very important piece.

day 54: compound verbs

Sometimes a sentence may have two verbs. This is called a compound verb.

If the subject of the sentence does two different things, it has a
compound verb. Examples:

Joshua wrote and edited.

1. What did Joshua do?
2. Two things:
1. Wrote
2. Edited

Kayla passed out medicines and took blood pressures.

1. What did Kayla do?
2. Two things:
1. Passed out medicines (passed)
2. Took blood pressures (took)

Sometimes a sentence can even have three or more verbs.

Verbs can be all throughout a sentence -- in opener, the main part of
the   sentence, and clauses at the end.

For example, in the sentences provided below, notice all of the bold fonted action verbs.

1. When Cami got to the church, she answered her emails, picked up her mail, and made phone calls but not before she ran into an old friend and chatted for a while.
2. If the kids wanted to perform the drama, Kara knew that they must learn to listen carefully to instructions rather than playing around during class.

day 53: action verbs

When you write sentences, you always use verbs! This is because each sentence must contain a verb. (Do you remember CAVES—Capital, All makes sense, Verb, End mark, Subject?)

The verb is the action or being of the sentence’s subject. It is what the subject is or does.

There are two main types of verbs:

        a. Action verbs
       b. Be, a Helper, Link verbs (a group of verbs we will learn containing being, helping, and linking verbs)



Action verbs are the most common type of verbs.

If the subject does something, the sentence has an action verb.



Examples:

       a. The dog barked.
       b. The cat meowed.



The easiest way to find an action verb is to ask, “What did
the subject do?”

Examples:

a. The girl smiled.
     1) What did the girl do?
     2) smiled

b. The boy ran.

   1) What did the boy do?
   2) ran

day 52: main subject pop quiz—answer key

 In the sentences provided, highlight the main subjects.



Hint: The main subject is usually one of the first few words of a sentence!


 

           

            1. Sickness is caused by different things.

           

       2. Some animals carry sicknesses. (You may have indicated the one-word subject animals or the describer with the one-word subject.)

           

       3. People can get sick from them.

           

       4. Other diseases are in the air.

           

       5. People breathe them in.

           

       6. Then they get sick.

           

           

       7. People would get sick less often if they would stay clean.

          8. Children need to learn to wash their hands frequently.

1. People can use anti-bacterial soap.

1. We can “wash away germs.”

day 50: final subject review—and a subject is not in a prepositional phrase

The main subject of a sentence is never in a prepositional phrase.

This is why we spent so much time on prepositions last month. If you can find prepositions, you can find prepositional phrases. If you find prepositional phrases, you can isolate them (mentally or with parentheses) and discover that the main subject is not in a prepositional phrase. This will help you determine subject verb agreement in your sentences more clearly.

For example:

1.                      Kara, (along with her sisters), is coming.

a.      Kara is the subject and needs the verb is

b.     Sisters is not the sentence’s subject.

2.                      Josiah and Jake, (though not Jonathan), are at basketball.

a.      Josiah and Jake are the subjects of the sentence, not Jonathan.

b.     Thus, Josiah and Jake need a plural verb—are.

In review, a sentence’s main subject has the following traits:

            a. It is the person or thing that the sentence is about.

            b. It usually comes at the beginning of the sentence.

            c. It is usually a noun or a pronoun.

            d. It is the source (person or thing) of the action.

            e. It is never found in a prepositional phrase.

Better study up! Tomorrow is a pop quiz! Smile…

day 45: more about a sentence’s main subject

The main subject is the word or words in the sentence that the entire
sentence is about.

Two facts about the main subject for today:

            a. It is often found at the beginning of the sentence.

                        1) He turned his head.

                        2) The boy had heard something.

            b. It is the person or thing that the whole sentence is
about.

                        1) The girl ran. Who ran? girl

                        2) The father prayed. Who prayed? Father

Tomorrow--compound subjects!

day 23: homework help—more why learn prepositions?

Check out yesterday’s post for the introduction for “why learn prepositions.” Then read on for information that might help you as a student, parent, teacher, or anyone who wants to write with proper subject-verb agreement.

A preposition is a word that shows position or time between one item and another. It is the first word of the prepositional phrase.

A prepositional phrase is a group of words that begins with a preposition and ends with the object of the preposition—the word that shows the “position” from or to. In the prepositional phrase, “the angel flew into the clouds,” clouds is the object of the preposition.

Again, we learn prepositional phrases so that we can mentally eliminate them in order to match our sentence’s subject with its correct verb. Recognizing and mentally removing prepositional phrases is a truly “writing worthy” skill as it will help a person write more grammatically correct.

Consider the sentences below that have the prepositional phrases isolated with parentheses. Once you mentally eliminate these prepositional phrases, you can easily match the sentences’ subjects with their verbs.

1. The boy (in the woods) was lost.
1. Isolating “in the woods” with parentheses keeps the writer from thinking that the sentence’s subject is woods—and keeps the writer from writing “woods were,” which is not correct.
2. The sentence’s real subject is boy and needs the singular verb was.

2. (On the outskirts) (of town,) a little house fell down.
1. This sentence contains a double prepositional phrase.
2. This double prepositional phrase is used as a sentence opener—coming before the sentence’s real subject and real verb.
3. By isolating both prepositional phrase openers with parentheses, we find that the sentence’s real subject is house (or a little house—some grammarians consider the one word subject and some consider the entire subject with its describers) and the sentence’s verb is fell.

3. The blonde girl (out of all the girls) was (on key.)
1. This sentence contains two prepositional phrases

                                                    i.     Out of all the girls

                                                   ii.     On key

2. By isolating them with parentheses (and thus, not considering them when we find our subject and verb), we can see that the sentence’s subject is girl and verb is was.
3. If we did not isolate “out of all the girls,” we might be tempted to think that “girls” is our subject and use the plural verb “were.”

Re-read the sample sentences carefully. Without isolating the prepositional phrases, would you have been tempted to use the wrong verbs? Isolating prepositional phrases is one of the most helpful beginning writing skills that a writer can learn. It helps eliminate one of the most common sentence writing errors—that of mismatched subjects and verbs.

That’s enough for today! Join us tomorrow for many tricks and tips to help you and/or your students memorize many of the one hundred-plus prepositions.

day 22: homework help--why learn prepositions?

For the last week of January—the “word” month at LL 365—we will have our “homework help” week focused on prepositions.

The simplistic description of preposition, the one we use with our youngest language arts students, is that “prepositions show position.” That is, they are words that show position of one thing to something else.

Of course, prepositions show time, space, and direction (among other things) of one thing to another thing.

The first thing we need to know here about prepositions, as parents, older students, or adults, is the role that prepositions play in writing. So, today we will examine the role of prepositions—and the rest of the week we will give tips, hints, and lists for learning these vital words.

Our “grammar theory” here at Training for Triumph is that we learn grammar to write or speak. I am a big “purpose for learning” type of teacher. If we know why we need to learn something, we will be more apt to want to learn it (or at least to see the value in learning it). Thus, phonics is for reading and spelling. (No reason to learn phonics without also reading from a reader at the same time to apply the phonics skills.) And grammar is for writing and speaking.

So it is with preposition learning. Here is the sequence of “reasoning” for learning prepositions:

1. Prepositions are words that are found at the beginning of prepositional phrases.
2. The prepositional phrase
1. A phrase—a group of words that does not contain a subject and a verb
2. Prepositional phrase--a phrase (group of words) that begins with a word known as a preposition

3. The subject of a sentence is seldom found within a prepositional phrase.
4. Subjects in a sentence (anywhere in a sentence) must match their verbs in tense, number, etc.
5. Since the subject of a sentence is not found in a prepositional phrase, if you learn to recognize prepositional phrases easily, you can eliminate them (mentally) and easily find your sentence’s subject(s) and verb(s) to be sure they match.

We will pick this discussion up tomorrow. Thanks for joining us at Language Lady 365!