 اسلام علیکم و نہیں بات جانتے ہیں سلیصر کم احترامی میں صرف خواہت پر سبجیکتی ملے تکرار ہمیں تکرار کسی ملے سبجیکتی سبجیکتی تو جانتی ہے ایک اورتو پر سبجیکتی سبجیکتی سبجیکتی اور سبجیکتی سبجیکتی سبجیکتی اور ہمارے بہت ہی نہیں ہے کہ سب سے بہت سیٹنس کو ملیہ ہوتا ہے کہ یہ سب سے ملیہ اگری یا مجھے کیا ہے سب سے بہت سیٹنس کو بہت سیٹنس کو بڑھا جاتا ہے میرے بھاگا کسی جوپس کو بہت سیٹنس کو بہت سیٹنس کو بھی بھی جاتا ہے now this is a straight forward sentence over here the subject is mother works is the verb in the first sentence in the second sentence my grandma is the subject and takes is the verb now this was a straight forward sentence in today's lesson you shall learn about situations that can cause problems with subject verb agreement now before we go on to look at subjects and verbs I would like to revise your tenses and especially the present tense just to brush up your knowledge of grammar take this sentence last night I played chess my friends played cards right now in this sentence you must have noticed this sentence you must have noticed is in the past tense and the past tense verb is the same for all subjects whether the subject is singular or plural however there is a problem with present tense verbs the present tense verbs if you remember have two forms look at this table and you will notice the pattern of the tense the present tense pattern of the verbs in the singular it is I work you work he works she works and it works in the plural it is you work we work and they work this was just to revise to recall your present tense verb forms now did you notice that there is an s at the end of the present tense verbs for singular subjects except for I and you and there is no s at the end of present tense verbs right I and you and all plural verbs now we will do a short exercise for the sake of practice and you choose the correct form of the verb you've got a number of sentences and in each of them you are given two verbs you choose the correct form of the verb now notice before you do that look at the subject if the subject is in the singular you will choose one sort of verb take the first sentence I shall go through it with you so that you are reminded you remember your subject verb agreement this is just a sample the rag picker sort sorts huge bundles of rags now the subject in that sentence the rag picker is in the singular so the verb form that goes with that subject would be the rag picker sorts huge bundles of rags in the second sentence the rag pickers huge bundles of rags it's the same sentence but you notice that over here the subject is in the plural the rag pickers so the correct form of the verb the verb and the subject have to match have to agree so over there in number two you would select the rag pickers sort huge bundles of rags it is the word sort minus the s number three the student listen listens to music while studying again the subject is in the singular the student and the verb has to agree the singular subject will take the word listens the word listen that ends with s the student listens to music while studying number four same sentence but the subject over here is different the students listen or listens to music while studying again choose the form that goes with the subject the subject being in the plural so over here you will choose the word listen the plural form the plural subject will take the singular form listen to music while studying number five the worm wriggle or wriggles in the glass tube since worm is the subject and it is in the singular so you know which verb will go for it and the form that is correct over there is the worm wriggles in the glass tube number six the worms and now here the subject is in the plural so you will have a different form of verb and the verb will the verb will be wriggle the worms wriggle in the glass tube number seven the gardener whistle or whistles while watering plants since the subject is in the singular you will take you will choose the first one the gardener whistles while watering plants and the last sentence there the subject is in the plural so it will be the gardeners whistle while watering plants now that was just to brush up your knowledge of subject verb agreement now we are going to look at situations which can pose problems in subject verb agreement we've revised you can remember what we've gone through right now and now I'll talk about the situations where students don't know how to tackle subject verb agreement now the problem is that in many cases there are many sentences where the subject is close to the verb without the verb the subject coming first now this is a common situation when the first type of problem situation occurs when the subject and verb do not occur side by side in most sentences it happens that the subject and verb come close together but in many situations because you can have all types of sentences you find that the subject and the verb do not come together they do not occur side by side take this sample most shops on mal road are having sales this week most shops on mal road are having sales this week now over there in this sentence you've got the word shops shops is the subject and it's in the plural form alright and the verbs are having subject and verb do not come together side by side or one after the other there is in fact a phrase which separates the two and the phrase is on mal road now in this sentence it's a prepositional phrase on mal road if you remember in your past lessons I talked about prepositional phrases and a prepositional phrase is a phrase that begins with a preposition so in this sentence it's a prepositional phrase on mal road which separates the subject shops and the verb are having let me remind you again a prepositional phrase is a group of words that begin with a preposition preposition such as in on for from to and it usually ends the phrase the prepositional phrase it begins with a preposition and ends with a noun or a pronoun now remember the subject of the sentence is never part of a prepositional phrase let me repeat that again you must remember that the subject of the sentence is never part of the prepositional phrase now we shall quickly go through a set of sentences so that you have some practice in finding the subject of a sentence with a prepositional phrase now in this exercise you have to do three things first you identify the prepositional phrase then you pick out the subject of the sentence and finally you spot the verb that agrees with the subject now take the first sentence one of my best friends now lives in dubai look at the sentence pick out the prepositional phrase and I told you I've given you the hint the prepositional phrase begins with a preposition and finally you spot the verb the verb that agrees with the subject now take the first sentence one of my best friends now lives in dubai look at the sentence pick out the prepositional phrase and I told you I've given you the hint the prepositional phrase begins with a preposition and it ends with a noun or a pronoun now over there there are two prepositional phrases in the first sentence of my best friends of the phrase begins with a preposition ends with the noun friends and the other one is in dubai in is a preposition dubai is a proper noun right you've spotted the prepositional phrase now which is the subject of the first prepositional phrase and that is one of my best friends you've spotted the subject you've spotted the you've identified the prepositional phrase now spots the verb and the verb that agrees with the subject the subject is in the singular one so your verb will be lives number two the wafer in the ice cream taste like sawdust now in that sentence first spot the prepositional phrase and it is in this ice cream use the hints that I've told you the clues are there in is a preposition ice cream cream cream is noun now the prepositional phrase is in this ice cream and the subject of that sentence is wafer now the verb the verb that goes with it is tastes so wafer subject in this ice cream prepositional phrase and tastes is the verb the next sentence number three many people in the indopark subcontinent speak several languages many people in the indopark subcontinent speak several languages the prepositional phrase is in the indopark subcontinent right and the subject is I'm sure you've spotted it it is people that's the subject so people and the verb that goes with it is speak number four no person in my class sleeps through my lecture no person in my class sleeps through my lecture and the prepositional phrase is in my class subject person verb sleeps and sentence number five the toddler by the swings is my nephew the toddler by the swings is my nephew and the prepositional phrase over there is by the swings the subject of that sentence is toddler and the verb is is so you've got practice in spotting verbs prepositional phrases and subjects now in most english sentences the verb usually follows the subject example I saw the film the plate dropped from her hands a plane crashed now in all these sentences the verb follows the subject I saw the film I is the subject saw is the verb the second sentence the plate dropped from her hands plate subject dropped verb plane subject crashed verb but there are some sentences where the verb comes before the subject and such sentences often are questions or they may begin with the prepositional phrase or word groups like there is here are now let me repeat this again there are sentences where the verb comes before the subject right and in these sentences the sentences where the verb comes before these sentences are usually questions or they may begin with the prepositional phrase or with word groups with words like this here are there is now even in such cases where the verb comes before the subject the verb must agree with the subject whether the subject whether the verb comes before or comes after you must remember one thing that the verb must agree with the subject in number the example what was the result of the cricket match now you notice in this sentence the verb is was and was comes before the subject result right and off the cricket match is a prepositional phrase and I'm sure you've noticed that this is a question right the verb was a singular so it agrees with the singular subject result right remember the subject of a sentence is never in a prepositional phrase now we look at some more sentences there are many unemployed teachers in the district now over here the verb is R which is in the plural form and the subject is teachers which is again in the plural so you have plural verb with plural subject sentence number 3 here is the disc here is the computer disc of the lesson subject disc in the singular and the verb is is also in the singular number 4 in that box are other photographs in that box are other photographs now the verb is R which is in the plural and it matches the subject photographs which is in the plural and last sentence what was the purpose of that lecture what was the purpose of that lecture and the subject is purpose and the verb is was singular subject singular verb now if you are not sure of the subject in a sentence you should look for the verb and then ask yourself the question who or what that is a very easy way of spotting the subject now in the second sentence that you had just now there are many unemployed teachers in the district you would have asked what are there in the district and the answer would have been unemployed teachers and you would have known that unemployed teachers is the subject of that sentence now for the third sentence look for the verb and ask yourself the question what is here and the answer would be the computer disc and you would know that the computer disc is the subject of that sentence now here again is some practice for you and you identify the subject and the verb in each sentence number 1 where is or are the keys of the cupboard what is the verb which one is the verb verb and which one which word is the subject you had no problem I am sure the subject of that sentence was keys and the verb that goes with it is are the correct verb is are because are is in the plural and it matches the subject which is also in the plural keys and are number 2 the sentence number 2 underneath the big stone live lives many colonies of ants underneath the big stone live or lives many colonies of ants now the verb is live and what live there underneath the big stone live many colonies of ants and is in the plural number 3 in my back garden grow grows many herbs the verb is the verb must match the subject and the subject is herbs herbs is in the plural and the verb must be in the plural also so it has to be grow number 4 why does or do you always have to be right and subject is you verb is do right and notice it's a question so the verb comes before the subject which is you and number 5 are some cards for you the subject is cards cards is in the plural so you have to choose the plural form of the verb and that is are now that was the second situation there is a third situation that can pose problems in subject verb agreement and that happens when there is an indefinite pronoun subject this happens when there is an indefinite pronoun subject indefinite pronouns are pronouns that do not refer to a specific person or thing now let me remind you of these indefinite pronouns it's not that you don't know but maybe you have forgotten words like each either neither one anyone everyone someone no one anybody everybody somebody nobody anything everything something nothing these are all indefinite pronouns take the word something something it's not referring to anything in particular when you use the word anyone or nobody you're not referring to anything specific so the pronouns that I just read out for you are always singular remember that two things number one that indefinite pronouns are always singular number one number two that they always take singular verbs notice make a note that subject verb relationships with indefinite pronouns now we will again have some practice so that you learn to pick the right verb to go with the subject in these sentences note the relationship the subject verb relationship with the indefinite pronouns subject the subject over here in the following sentences that you are going to practice have indefinite pronouns as their subjects and notice the relationship with the verb the first one one of those correspondence courses is still open one of those correspondence courses is still open now notice the subject of that sentence is one and one is an indefinite pronoun and the subject of that sentence is an indefinite pronoun the word one and we just said that indefinite pronouns are singular so the verb that will go with it is is one of those correspondence courses is is still open right look at number two neither of my parents is alive neither of my parents is alive now over there the sentence begins with an indefinite pronoun which is neither the subject is neither which is in the singular so it will have to take a singular verb and subject verb agreement neither is neither subject is the verb sentence number three somebody was opening my letters somebody was opening my letters and in that sentence somebody is the subject and somebody the word somebody is an indefinite pronoun so it has to take a singular verb and the verb is was somebody was opening was opening my letters sentence number four merely everyone in my class owns a computer now in that sentence everyone is a subject and everyone is an indefinite pronoun so it will take the verb it will take the verb owns which is in the singular now that was just to remind you to make you aware of the relationship between indefinite pronoun subject and their verbs now we will do some practice I shall place you through it and you identify the subject and the verb that agrees with it number one everything in this crate goes or go upstairs right choose the correct form of the verb since the subject is everything it has to be goes in the singular everything is indefinite so subject is everything and the verb that goes with it is goes they are both in the singular and sentence number two neither of the phones work or works which one would be the correct one and the correct verb is works neither of the phones works subject is neither and the verb will be works singular number three no one favours a favour a cheat again subject is no one it will take a singular verb and the verb is favours now each number four sentence number four each of the apples appear or appears to have been nibbled by the same person each of the apples appear or appears to have been nibbled by the same person and the subject is each so the verb will be in the singular and the verb will be appears number five something about her story sound or sounds suspicious and the subject is something and the verb would be sounds now that was an exercise so that you know the relationship between indefinite pronouns and the subjects now there are some sentences where the subjects are compound and this is the last type of situation which can pose problems in subject verb agreement and these are situations where there is a compound subject compound subjects are usually they are subjects which are joined by two or more subjects they are two or more subjects and they are joined by the word and and they require plural verbs for example petrol and car repairs are my biggest expenses every month now in that sentence there is not one subject but two subjects and these such subjects are called compound subjects and petrol and cars are the subject of that sentence right so the subject being in the plural you will have to choose a plural verb and the verb is are second sentence there were vcrs and cameras on rent now in that sentence the subject is more than one it's vcrs and cameras it's a compound subject two subjects and they will take a plural verb so the verb has to be verb were number three crockery and cutlery crockery and cutlery items are included in the bill crockery and cutlery are compound subjects so the verb has to be are now remember that when compound subjects are joined by words like or nor either or neither nor not only but also the verb agrees with the closer subject by closer subjects I mean the verb that is next that is closest to the verb take this example either grapes or mango ice cream is the specialty every Saturday at the students dining hall now over there you've got compound subject grapes or mango ice cream now mango ice cream is the nearest the closest to the verb is now mango ice cream is a singular subject it's closer to the verb so the singular form of the verb will be appropriate so the verb with that compound subject will be is now notice the next sentence it is again the same sentence but with a slight difference here the order is reversed you have either mango ice cream or grapes are the specialty every Saturday at the students dining hall now the verb is the verb in that sentence is the word are why because the subject that is closest to the verb is the word grapes and grapes are always in the plural now the third thing is that you have to remember is that whilst most indefinite pronouns such as each everyone somebody are always singular there are a few pronouns that are not and these pronouns are the words both and the phrase a few remember they are always plural and they require plural verbs now you might say earlier on she said one thing now she is saying another but this is how languages are you there is a rule and there are always exceptions to the rule I've just given you one rule and I've said that these words always take the singular and then I said that no there are some indefinite pronouns that are always in the plural and these you just have to remember it's the word both and the phrase a few example both of my aunts play the sitar and sing professionally a few of my cousins are also actors now let us look at that sentence again both of my aunts play the sitar and sing professionally a few of my cousins are also actors now the pronouns all and some are either singular or plural depending on the words that follow them if the words after them are singular then they are singular if the words after them are plural then they are plural example some of the chicken is still on the table now since chicken is singular some is singular in the sentence a singular verb is is needed another example some of the guests are not having chicken since guests is plural it makes some the words some plural in the sentence the plural verb are is appropriate over here now another practice a practice session you identify the verb that is given in the brackets the verb that agrees with the compound subjects sentence number one our aunts and uncles stay or stays with us when they come to Lahore now in that sentence the correct verb would be stay because aunts and uncles are in the plural and they are compound subjects number two is are the actors and actresses ready to take the curtain call and over there the subject is are right number three ropes and a clamp hold the mural the mural is a big painting a huge painting that is on the wall number four the broken headlights and sidelight was were the result of my bad driving and over there the correct verb would be were next the batsman and the wicked keeper require requires a fitness certificate and the verb over there is require number six all of the students at the lecture was were glad when it was over the correct verb is were because students is in the plural number seven either Jamila or her daughter stay stays at home to care for Iqbal and the verb over there is Jamila or her daughter and the verb would be stays in the singular number eight neither the head clock nor his assistant clocks has been or have been fired for corruption since the last subject assistant clocks is in the plural the verb would be also in the plural next sentence number nine nor not only Khalid but also his friends is or are to blame for the accident since the closest verb is plural friends not verb sorry noun is in the plural so the verb will also be plural number ten a few of the strawberries taste or taste funny and since it's the word few so you will say a few of the strawberries taste funny now I'll give you a short test just to see how far you have captured the lesson now each of these passages contains two mistakes in the subject verb agreement find these mistakes and correct them the first one is the rainforest of Brazil is home to many species of frogs nobody among the world scientists know exactly how many more types are being discovered all the time now in each of these sentences there were two subject verb mistakes the first one is the rainforest of Brazil is it has to be are and in the second sentence nobody among the world scientists know since the word the sentence begins with an indefinite pronoun it has to be nobody among the world's scientists knows in the singular number two the paint on the house and the garage are peeling each of also each of the buildings need repairs however there is never enough time to do these jobs now in those two in that passage the first sentence it's the verb are that is wrong and in the second it's the verb need correct them look at number three one of our professors always listens to students and makes sure they understand the lecture each of his students feel free to ask questions also the tests in his classes is always fair and clear this should not be difficult for you now in the third sentence again there are two mistakes it's the word feel and the word is correct them now we will quickly review today's lesson you fill in the blanks that you see on your screen with the correct word and let's see if you have captured today's lecture a singular subject takes a what verb a singular verb a plural subject takes a plural verb right and a singular the singular of present tense verbs is sometimes formed by adding the letter s to the end of the verb and the fourth one is the subject of a sentence is often found in a prepositional phrase now is that true or false false next compound subjects require a plural verb true or false true number six the indefinite pronouns anyone and everybody take a what kind of a verb do they take they take a singular verb and the last one the pronouns both and few are always plural and require plural verbs true or false now in today's lesson you looked at subject verb agreement within sentences and how an awareness of these sentences and an awareness how these sentences must be correct can improve your written expression all good writers keep in mind these aspects of language and avoid the subject verb disagreement discrepancies and you should also try to understand these try to avoid making such mistakes that's all for today folks see you next time Allah Hafiz