Overview
Verbs should agree with their subjects in person and number. It is also important to determine whether the verb is active or passive. Many verbs in English have different forms to indicate tense. While most verbs are regular, some are irregular and can cause problems.
Subject-Verb Agreement
If the subject of the sentence is singular, the verb should have a singular form, such as in the sentence, “The book sits on the table.” Similarly, if the subject is plural, the verb should have a plural form, such as in the sentence, “The books sit on the shelf.” Sometimes it is difficult to tell if the subject is singular or plural. For example, compound subjects joined by the word and are plural, such as in the sentence, “Mary and Anne swim on the swim team.” However, if a prepositional phrase comes between a singular subject and the verb, the verb is still singular to agree with its subject, even if the object of the prepositional phrase is plural. For example, in the sentence, “The report about conditions in the lakes and rivers describes causes of pollution,” the subject is the singular word report, rather than the plural conditions, lakes or rivers.
Active and Passive Verbs
When verbs are active, the subject performs the action, such as “The rain fell in torrents.” When verbs are passive, the subject receives the action, such as “The ball was caught by the outfielder.” Notice that often sentences in passive voice are wordier than sentences in active voice, and can be recast. For example, “A possible clue to the murderer’s identity was found by the detective” can be quickly recast as “The detective found a possible clue to the murderer’s identity.”
Agreement of Verb Tenses
In English, verb tenses are indicated by different forms or inflections of the verb or by a change in the auxiliary verb forms. A verb may have different forms in the present tense and the past tense, such as “Sue practices the piano every day,” and “Yesterday Sue practiced the piano.” The difference between present and future tense is often expressed by change in auxiliary verb forms, as in the sentence, “In the future, astronauts will go to Mars.”
Regular and Irregular Verbs
Many verb forms are regular, so that the past tense is formed by adding –ed to the present tense, such as play and played, pay and paid, look and looked. However, others are irregular, and can cause spelling problems. For example, the present tense of break is break, past is broke, and future is broken, the present tense of rise is rise, past is rose, and future is risen, and the present tense of grow is grow, past is grew and future is grown.
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