Subject-Verb Agreement

Subject-Verb Agreement means that a singular subject takes a singular verb and a plural subject takes a plural verb.

For example:

In the first example the subject is singular: my brother. This makes the verb singular: is.

In the second example the subject is plural: my brothers. This makes the verb plural: are.

Subject

The first step is to identify whether the subject is singular or plural (this is known as Grammatical Number).

Usually this is not a problem:

However, sometimes it can be confusing. If we use either/or or neither/nor then this is classed as singular.

Verb

Once we know if the subject is singular or plural, we need to choose a singular or plural verb form. This is known as Grammatical Person.

Exceptions

Deciding if the team is singular or plural is not so easy and depends on how we perceive the them. If we see them as a cohesive unit working together then we can say:

However, if we see them, for example, as playing as individuals with no real cohesive structure we might say: