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Sentence Grammar |
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Verbs |
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Maintaining Agreement |
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Most sentences begin with the subject The part of the sentence that names the person, place, or thing the sentence is about. Subjects are usually nouns or pronouns. The word firefighters is the subject of the following sentence: Seven firefighters were injured in the apartment fire.
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Many voters were disturbed by the proposal.
However, a sentence may be inverted so that it begins with the verb:
Disturbed by the proposal were many voters.
Don’t be misled by inverted sentence order. Despite the unusual position, voters is the subject, not proposal, and voters requires a plural verb A verb indicates the meaning of a sentence as it shows action, occurrence, or state of being. Verbs change form to show time, voice, number, person, and mood. In the following sentence, the verb have is used correctly: Ben and Ted have so many friends.
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In some sentences, the subject follows the verb, but the word there or where begins the sentence and refers to the subject. When a sentence begins with there or where, determine what the word refers to by finding the noun that follows the verb. Consider the following examples:
Many pizza places are near campus.
There are many pizza places near campus.One pizza place is more popular than any other.
There is one pizza place that is more popular than any other.Where is the student center?
The student center is there.Where are the bicycle racks?
The bicycle racks are there.
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Click the correct sentence. |
| Yes. In this sentence, were is correct. |
| No. In this sentence, was is not correct. |
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