Lecture 2and Lecture 3.docVIP

Lecture 2 and Lecture 3Subject-verb Concord 1.Guiding principles 1) Grammatical concord 2) Notional concord 3) Proximity The principle of grammatical concord refers to the rule that the verb must match its subject in number. If the subject is plural, the verb should take the plural form; if, on the other hand, the subject is singular or is a mass noun, the verb should take the singular form, eg: Both boys have their own merits. Every girl comes on time. Much effort is wasted.   back The principle of notional concord refers to the rule that the verb can sometimes agree with the subject according to the notion of number rather than to the actual presence of the grammatical marker for that notion, eg: Fifteen miles seems like a long walk to me. back The principle of proximity denotes agreement of the verb with a closely preceding noun phrase in preference to agreement with the head of the noun phrase that functions as subject,eg:  Either my brothers or my father is coming. Only one out of five were present.  No one except his own supporters agree with him. Neither Julia nor I am going. back 2. Problems of concord with nouns ending in –s 1) Disease and game names ending in –s AIDS IS GAME names 2) Subject names ending in –ics 3) Geographical names endings in –s 4) Other nouns ending in -s 2.2 Problems of concord with nouns ending in -s Disease and game names ending in –s They are mostly treated as singulars. A few such names can be used either as singular or as plural. Subject names ending in –ics Such names are generally singula nouns, but some such nouns are treaed as plural when used in other senses than subject names. Ge