Subject–verb agreement

Subject–verb agreement is the grammatical matching of a verb to its subject in features such as number and person. It shapes verb forms in languages including English.

Grammatical number: A grammatical feature that distinguishes categories such as singular and plural. Number is the main feature that determines English subject–verb agreement.
Subject (grammar): A grammatical relation commonly associated with the entity that a clause is about or that performs an action. Agreement is controlled by the grammatical subject, not simply the nearest noun.
Pronoun–antecedent agreement: The matching of a pronoun with the noun phrase it refers to in features such as number and gender. It also involves matching, but links a pronoun to its antecedent rather than a subject to a verb.
Proximity agreement: Agreement in which a verb matches the nearest noun rather than the syntactic subject. It conflicts with standard English subject-based agreement in sentences with intervening nouns.
Grammatical person: A grammatical feature distinguishing speaker, addressee, and other participants. Person affects English verb forms, especially the present-tense verb be.
Predicate (grammar): The part of a clause that says something about its subject. The predicate contains the verb whose form is matched to the subject.
Tense: A grammatical category that locates an event in time relative to a reference point. Tense changes verb forms independently of whether the subject and verb agree.
Notional agreement: Agreement based on a phrase’s meaning rather than its formal grammatical features. It helps explain plural verbs with some collective nouns and coordinated subjects.
Finite verb: A verb form marked for grammatical categories such as tense, mood, or agreement. Finite verbs carry the agreement marking that nonfinite forms lack.
Noun phrase: A phrase centered on a noun or pronoun that functions as a grammatical unit. A noun phrase can serve as the subject even when it contains other nouns.

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