Subject–Verb Agreement

The basics of subject–verb agreement. The number of the subject determines the number of the verb. In other words, if the subject is plural, the verb, too, must be appropriate for plural subjects. Table 1 lists sample singular and subject verbs.

Table 1: Sample Singular and Plural Subjects

Singular	Plural
cat	cats
I	we
John	John and Bob
flower	flowers

Subject–Verb agreement causes problems only in the present tense. Unlike verbs in other tenses (e.g., past tense, future tense), present tense verbs change according to whether the subject is singular or plural.