CONCORD
every sentence in english has two parts.
1.subject
2.Predicate
The subject generally comes before the predicate. The subject is always a noun phrase.
The predicate gives up information on the topic which was introduced through the subject. The predicate always contains a verb phrase.
PERSON AND NUMBER
In english, pronouns are said to in the first,second or third person. The first person refers to the speaker;the second person refers to the listener,while the third person refers to all other
first person I (speaker)
second person you (listener)
third person He/She/It (all others)
All nouns are said to be third person.
CONCORD
Meaning of concord is agreement. Whether it is between subject-verb.singular-plural or etc.
pronouns as well as nouns take different forms which indicate number-that is whether it is singular or plural.
PRONOUNS
First person singular plural
Second person I we
third person You You
Nouns
singular plural
boy boys
child children
Number And Person in Verbs--
When the verb is some form of is/am/are;was/were, it changes its form acc. to the number and person of the subject.
e.g,
1. I am Boy (ist person,singular no.)
2. We are boys (1st person,plural no.)
3. You are a Boy (2nd person,singular no.)
4. You are boys (2nd prson,plural no.)
5. He is a boy. (3rd person,singular no.)
6. They are boys (3rd person,plural no.)
Subject-Verb Aggreement
In the above examples, the subject is a pronoun, which can be in the any form. the verb changes its form to match the subject in number and person. This matching of subject and verb is called CONCORD or Agreement.
for example..
1. I eat apples. (1st person singular no.)
2. We eat apples (1st person plural no.)
3. You eat apples. (2nd person,singular)
4.You eat apples. (2nd person plural/singular)
5.They eat apples. (3rd peron, plural)
6.the boy eat apples. (3rd person,singular)
7. The boys eat apples. (3rd person,plural)
IN the above example verb used 'eat' has only two forms singular(eat) plural(eats). It is only when the verb is used with the subject in the third person that it takes two form- a plural as well as singular form. When the subject is in the first second person, the verb takes only one form, which is singular as well as plural.
Many mistakes that learners make while using english are mistakes of agreement.
The general rules is;
When the subject is in the third person,a singular subject takes a singular verb, and plural takes a plural verb.
1. The boys likes apples. (singular subject,singular verb)
2. Boys like apples. (plural subject,plural verb)
When the verb comes after the subject, it becomes easy to apply the agreement rule.
h My two sister together with a friend,.........
The next word in the sentence is likely to be verb. But there are so many words separating the subject from the verb that it may be difficult to remember if the subject was singular or plural. so we can easily make a mistake of agreement.
My two sisters, together with a friend, is going to america.
*My son, who has studied in some of the best american colleges, are coming tomorrow.
here we used singular verd in place of plural verb because the noun which is nearest to it happens to be plural. But 'colleges' is not a subject. The subject son is singular, and so verb should have been singular.