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Grammar and Usage
Grammar and Usage
Grammar and Usage
COLLEGE OF LAW
Legal English I
I. SUBJECT-VERB AGREEMENT
Notes:
1. The following are generally considered singular, and take singular verbs:
The plaintiff and the defendant agree to refer the matter to mediation.
What your sister wants and what my brother wants are poles apart.
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5. “Each” may be plural, if the subject is plural rather than a compound of singular
nouns or pronouns.
7. Plural-form nouns are taken in the plural sense; plural verbs are therefore used.
B. PREPOSITIONAL PHRASES
Prepositional phrases that come in between the subject and the verb do not affect
subject-verb agreement.
C. DEPENDENT CLAUSES
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Not one among the senior citizens of the City who are taking the medicine
is complaining.
Compound words that refer to one thing is singular and take singular verbs.
Mass noun phrases of measurements as well as names and titles in plural form
are singular.
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Three blocks is great for exercise.
Fifteen days is the company’s annual vacation leave.
Paramount Pictures is my favorite studio.
Three hundred pesos is all I ask.
The Last Mohicans is a good movie.
The United Nations has only a few large states.
H. COLLECTIVE NOUNS
Collective nouns are singular if the action is collective but plural if the action is
individual. Example of collective nouns: staff, committee, band, personnel, etc.
When the name of a science ending in “ics” is used to refer to the discipline itself
(e.g. economics, mathematics, statistics), the same is singular; when the practical
application of the field is referred, the same becomes plural.
J. DISJUNCTIVE COMPOUNDS
If the subject is a disjunctive compound (joined by “or” or “nor”), the verb should
agree with the element of the compound closest to the verb.
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