– What is subject-verb agreement?

Subject-verb agreement means that the verb of the sentence needs to match the noun or pronoun doing the action both in number and in person. The first condition, number, stipulates that:

if the noun/pronoun is singular then the verb must also be in a singular form
if the noun/pronoun is plural then the verb must also be in a plural form

The second condition, person, means that:

if the noun/pronoun is in the first person (“I” or “we”), then the verb must also be in a first person form
if the noun/pronoun is in the second person (“you”), then the verb must also be in a second person verb form
if the noun/pronoun is in the third person (“he”, “she”, “it”, or really anyone other than “I”, “we” or “you”), then the verb must also be in a third person form

So a sentence with a first-person singular subject must use a first-person singular verb, a sentence with a third person-plural subject must use a third-person plural verb, and so on.

Some special considerations do exist (for example, with mass nouns like water, which are uncountable), so here are a couple good websites with more information on this subject:

Posted in: Grammar