Subject-Verb Agreement

Dalam "Present Tense" antara Subject dan Verb harus bersesuaian. Artinya:

• Apabila subject dalam bentuk singular (tunggal), maka kata kerja (verb)/ auxiliary harus berbentuk singular (tunggal).
• Apabila subject dalam bentuk plural (jamak), maka kata kerja (verb)/ auxiliary harus berbentuk plural (jamak).

Subject (plural) + Verb (plural)

Subject ( Singular) + Verb (singular)

Examples

The boy walks to school.

The boys walk to school

My friends are nice.

One of my friends is nice.

Catatan:

'Plural Noun' biasanya berakhiran -s/es, singular Noun TANPA -s/es, sebaliknya 'plural Verb' TANPA akhiran -s/es dan 'singular Verb' berakhiran -s/es.

Untuk “to be”, Pada present tense is dipergunakan dengan subject tunggal dan are dengan subject jamak. Pada past tense was dengan subject tunggall dan were untuk subject jamak.

Hal-hal yang perlu diperhatikan kaitannya dengan Subject-Verb Agreement adalah:

1. Subject with Prepositional Phrase.

Untuk Subjek yang berupa frase (noun phrase) yang diterangkan oleh prepositional phrase, yang menjadi subjek adalah kata benda utamanya, yang biasanya terletak sebelum preposisi;

Examples:

1. One of my friends lives in this remote village
2. Three of my friends live in this remote village.
3. The trees behind the house are very tall.
4. The tree behind the houses is very tall.
5. A group of students goes to Kaliurang every Sunday.
6. A group of university students goes camping every weekend.
7. An increase in the sales of new cars makes the traffic jam worse.

2. Subject with Expressions of Quantity

Aturan khusus terjadi bila Subject adalah "Expressions of Quantity" seperti kata: all, most, some, part, diikuti preposisi of. Dalam kasus ini Subject (all, most, some) bisa singular atau plural, tergantung pada apa yang mengikuti preposisi 'of'.

All (of the book) was interesting. -(singular)

All (of the books) were interesting. -(plural)

All (of the information) was interesting. -(uncountable)

Some of the animals were released from the zoo into the animal preserve. -(plural)

3. Subject of Certain words

Kata-kata berikut secara grammar selalu singular, sehingga memerlukan Verb singular.

anybody	everybody	nobody
anyone	everyone	no one
anything	everything	nothing

somebody	every(+noun)	either / either of ……
someone	each (+noun)	neither / neither of …….
something	each of……

Examples:

1. Everybody needs money.
2. Nobody comes here.
3. Each of the students is required to sign the forms.
4. Everybody is impressed with the view of Danau Toba.
5. Because of the low number of orders, nothing has to be done now.
6. There are two girls approaching Setiawan. Either of them wears blue jeans.

4.	Subjek yang menyatakan hitungan jarak, volume, berat, uang, prosentase, dan waktu selalu dianggap tungal, oleh karenanya predikatnya-pun tunggal.

Examples:

1. 250 kilometers is the distance for the race.
2. 4.5435 liters is equal to 1,201 gallons.
3. 60 kilograms was her weight when she was young.
4. Seventy five percent of Indonesian populations lives in Java.
5. $ 10 (ten dollars) has the same value as Rp. 100,000
6. 12 months has 365 days

5.	Subyek yang terbentuk dari gerund (verb-ing) atau 'to-infinitive' harus dianggap tunggal.

• Swimming makes us healthy.
• Producing fine paintings requires skill and creativity.
• To err is human.

6.	Subyek dengan kata ‘number’ bisa dianggap singular dan bisa juga plural.

• A number of .......... harus diikuti Verb bentuk jamak
• The number of ........... harus diikuti Verb bentuk tunggal

Example:

1. The number of illiterate people in our country decreases drastically.
2. A number of illiterate people in our country decrease drastically

7.	Untuk kata ‘either’ berpasangan dengan ‘or’ atau ‘neither’ berpasangan dengan ‘nor’, verb-nya tergantung pada kata setelah ‘or’ atau ‘nor’.

1. Neither Agus nor Rudy is going to class today.
2. Either Yuni or Nunik is going to the beach today.
3. Neither Rudy nor his friends are going to class today.
4. Either Rudy or his cassmates are going to beach today.
5. Rudy or Rita is going to class today.
6. Rudy or his friends are going to class today.

8.	Subject dari kata benda yang tak dapat dihitung ( uncountable noun ) harus dianggap singular.

Examples :

• Water flows to the lower part of the land.
• The news of Yunita’s marriage is surprising many boys.

9. Nama – nama cabang ilmu harus dianggap singular

Examples :

• Mathematics needs to be taught in Kindergarten.
• Economics is one of the subjects that I take this semester.

10.	Keterangan tambahan untuk Kata Benda pada Subject, seperti prepositional phrase, appositives, present participle phrase, past participle phrase, dan adjective clause tidak mempengaruhi singular/plural pada Verb-nya. Yang mempengaruhi Verb-nya adalah Kata Benda utamanya (NOUN HEAD).

Examples:

1. Yuliana, together with her friends, is watching the film.
2. Fitri, accompanied by her parents, is complaining her English score of the final test.
3. The woman (who lives together with her four daugthers) is very poor.
4. Sally, the best student in the class, lives in a dormitory.
5. The packages mailed at the post office yesterday are for my brother in Jakarta.
6. The man talking to his friend has three wives.
7. Tommy, the youngest son of former President Soeharto, was sent to Nusakambangan.

Catatan: Appositives adalah Noun atau Noun Phrase yang berfungsi untuk menerangkan kata benda lain: antara yang menerangkan dan yang diterangkan mengacu ke hal yang sama. Lihat contoh 1 dan 7