Lecture 7: Subject-Verb & Pronoun-Antecedent Agreement

Definition:

Subject–verb agreement is “the matching of the number and person of the subject to the form of the verb. When the subject is third-person singular and the verb is in the present tense, the verb takes the –s inflection, as in: The dog barks all night. He bothers the neighbours.

With other subjects and in other tenses, verbs (with the exception of be) do not change to match the number or person of the subject: I sleep, we sleep, he slept, they slept.”

Basic Principle:

Singular subjects need singular verbs; plural subjects need plural verbs.

My brother is a nutritionist.
My sisters are mathematicians.



For more review, have a look at this grammar site and the OWL reference sheet.


1. When the subject of a sentence is composed of two or more nouns or pronouns connected by and, use a plural verb.

She and her friends are at the fair.

2. When two or more singular nouns or pronouns are connected by or or nor, use a singular verb.

The book or the pen is in the drawer.

3. When a compound subject contains both a singular and a plural noun or pronoun joined by or or nor, the verb should agree with the part of the subject that is nearer the verb.

The boy or his friends run every day.

His friends or the boy runs every day.

Pronoun and Antecedent
Pronoun = word that is substituted for a noun or noun equivalent. 
The critique of Plato's Republic was written from a contemporary point of view. It was an in-depth analysis of Plato's opinions about possible governmental forms.
Antecedent = word, phrase, or clause that has the characteristics of a noun (person, place or thing) and is referred to by a pronoun)
The critique of Plato's Republic was written from a contemporary point of view. It was an in-depth analysis of Plato's opinions about possible governmental forms.

Examples:
Mary saw John and spoke to him.(John is the antecedent.  Him is the pronoun.)
1. The members of the choir lost its/their voices two days before the spring concert.
2. Minne, Sandra Bullock's cat, was hit by a car last week and broke their/its leg.
3. The union workers went on strike to get a raise in its/their wages.

Review Pronoun-Antecedent Agreement:
http://aliscot.com/bigdog/agrpa_exercise.htm

When completed, craft 4 grammatically correct sentences using any of these pronouns and antecedents:

Auditor, janitor, lawyer, professor, his, her, she, their, family, basketball league, kitten, they, dinosaur, it, themselves, them, him

Add your sentences in a comment to Lecture 7 (this one).


We will conclude the lesson with an activity based on our readings of the two txt spk essays.

The following quotation is from SALI A. TAGLIAMONTE and DEREK DENIS's article: "LINGUISTIC RUIN? LOL! INSTANT MESSAGING AND TEEN LANGUAGE," American Speech, 83.1, Spring 2008 doi 10.1215/00031283-2008-001. You can access it here with your MacEwan id.

In formal written language, colloquial variants are illegitimate, prohibited by “language police” of all persuasions (teachers, editors, etc.). Indeed, anecdotal reports suggest that teachers are increasingly penalizing students for the use of abbreviations in written assignments. In teenage conversations, however, formal variants are equally undesirable. IM appears to be a venue in which teenagers are free to use all these features together. This linguistic fusion is endemic to the register itself. Individuals pick and choose from all the available variants that their linguistic system has to offer and draw from the entire stylistic repertoire of the language that exists at a given point in time. If the teenagers did not already possess skilled command of their linguistic system, this would be impossible. The character and nature of IM we have uncovered here reveals fluid mastery of the sociolinguistic resources in their speech community. We conclude that IM, and perhaps computer-mediated communication more generally, is not the ruin of this generation at all, but an expansive new linguistic renaissance.