Regular and Irregular Verbs and Subject Verb Agreement

See Lagan Chapter 26 and 27

Key Terms

• Regular Verb: a basic verb that can be turned into past tense by adding “d” or “ed”

• Irregular Verb: “a verb that has an irrecgular form in the past tense and past participle. For example choose becomes chose or chosen.

Principle Parts of Verbs

• Present (I shout)• Past (I shouted)• Present Participle (I am shouting)• Past Participle (have been/has/had shouted)

Refer to Langan

• Look at the box containing principle parts of regular verbs on page 493.

• Read “Nonstandard Forms of Regular Verbs”

Present Tense Examples: Fix These

• 1. My brother play guitar on the stage. • 2. Erin walk to school• 3. The family go to the farmer’s market.• 4. He buy pizza at Trader Joe’s.• 5. They never eats at Wendy’s.

Tricky Irregular Verbs• See Langan p. 495 for a complete list• Especially Tricky Ones:

Present Past Past Participle1. Begin Began (had) Begun2. Eat Ate Eaten3. Break Broke Broken4. Choose ChoseChosen5. Drink Drank Drunk6. Fight Fought Fought

More Tricky Irregular Verbs

• 7. Ride Rode Ridden• 8. Swim Swam Swum• 9. Sing Sang Sung• 10. Write Wrote Written

Subject-Verb Agreement

• Plural subjects have plural verbs, while singular subjects have singular verbs.

T/F? This sentence is correct.“The crinkly lines around Joan’s mouth gives her

a friendly look.”

False!

• How can we fix it?

• The crinkly lines around Joan’s mouth give/gives her a friendly look.

A Little Grammar Vocab

• Indefinite Pronoun: “a word that refers to people and things that are not named or are not specific. Many indefinite pronouns (such as one, nobody, nothing, and each) take a singular verb; others, such as both or few, take plural verbs

• Nobody is hiding under your bed, honey. • Compound Subject: “two subjects separated by a

joining word such as and. Compound subjects generally take a plural verb”

• Witches and vampires live in the forest.

Ignore Words between Subject and Verb

• The leaves on the tree are/is turning yellow.• The couch with stains all over it are/is old.• The cell phone on top of the pillows is/are

about to fall.

Be careful when verbs come before subjects

• There are/is protesters on the street for the “Occupy Wallstreet” protest.

• Where are/is that adorable jacket with the little buttons?

• In the leaves are/is a bug.

Be careful when you have a compound subject

• When you have a compound subject joined by and, the subjects usually take a plural verb– Lucy and Ethel goes/go to the Tropicana Club. – Batman and Robin fight/fights criminals.

• When you have “either. . . or, neither . . . nor, not only. . . but also, the verb agrees with the subject closer to the verb”– Neither Fergie nor WillIAM is/are going to perform.– Either Hilary Clinton or Vice President Biden are/is

planning to accompany President Obama.

Some Indefinite Pronouns Always Take the Singular Verb Tense

• One, anyone, everyone, someone• Nobody, anybody, everybody, somebody • Nothing, anything, everything, something • Each, either, neither