Words like everyone, everybody, everything, something,
anybody, nothing, no one.
Everything is
ready.
Is
everyone here?
Is anybody home?
Quantifiers with nouns/pronouns
Quantifiers without nouns/pronouns
Some
of the pie was gone.
Some
(count) are here. Some (non-count) is not.
Some
of the pies were gone.
All is
well. All are watching.
Both
of them are in the foyer.
Both
are correct. (as a group)
Neither of them is in the foyer.
Neither is correct. (separately)
None
of those people are nice.
(all
of them are not nice)
None
of those people is my friend.
(not
any individual)
Noun clauses
Whoever left the food on
the table is in trouble.
What you say is
not important.
How you do it is
up to you.
"Dummy" subjects
There
are five people in the room.
There is some milk in the refrigerator.
Be careful
In most
cases, the words before the verb are the subject of the
sentence.
It is just the three of us.
The
three of us are going to be there.
Prepositional phrases cannot be
subjects, even if they come at the beginning of a sentence.
On the table was a red hat,
On
the table were a red hat, white gloves and a blue
scarf.
Some words look plural but are
actually singular:
Physics is my favorite subject.
The
news was good.
Scotch and soda is my favorite drink. (This is very
uncommon usage.)
My
faithful friend and companion is Terry.
Mass or "group" nouns may be
singular or plural, depending on focus.
The family is more important than the individual.
The
family are going in separate directions.
With either/neither...or/nor, the
subject closest to the verb determines agreement.
Neither John nor Jane was the winner.
Either the men or the women are going to take the
cake.
Neither Mr. Jones nor his sons have a car.
Neither the boys nor their father has a car.
Some can sometimes be used to
indicate an unidentified person.
Some woman was here to see you.
Some
guy keeps calling you.
Relative clauses do not affect the
main subject-verb relationship; however, S-V agreement
within the relative clause may be different, depending on
the meaning.
The people who live there are my friends.
The
house that the Jacksons built need to be remodeled.
One
of the men who live there is deranged. He is the
only one who lives there.
If you have questions or comments about this page, please
contact us.
Great
Resources For Teaching & Learning English
