Although English-language verbs generally don’t inflect or change in form to agree with the subject in number, they do so in the present tense, third-person singular. In English grammar, in this ...

Mayor Carlson, along with his deputies, plan to visit the memorial. Mayor Carlson, along with his deputies, plans to visit the memorial. Which is right? Plan or plans? And, more important, why is this ...

Philips are in the house. Kunle and Kelvin has not eaten. The make-up artiste as well as her friend are cool and calm. Neither Kunle nor the twins is in the class. I pray he comes early. One of the ...

Pop quiz. Which is correct? “The dogs are outside” or “The dogs is outside.” I don’t even have to hear your answer to give you an A. Anyone reading an English-language newspaper surely knows that ...

Last week I discussed subject-verb agreement. Many of you wrote and asked about sports teams, particularly sports teams whose names don’t end in “s”: are they considered singular or plural? Would you ...

Huddleston and Pullum (2005) write “the verb agrees with the subject” (p. 31), and for quantificational nouns “the form of the verb depends on the … NP [noun phrase] that is complement to the ...

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