Make Inverted Verbs Agree

Skill

Make Inverted Verbs Agree

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We have seen that sometimes in English the subject comes after the verb.
This can occur after question words (Skill 15), after place expressions (Skill 16), after negative expressions (Skill 17), after omitted conditionals (Skill 18),
and after some comparisons (Skill 19). When the subject and verb are inverted, it can be difficult to locate them, and it can therefore be a problem to make them agree.

(Behind the house) was✱ the bicycles I wanted.
(Behind the houses) were✱ the bicycle I wanted.

In the first example, it is easy to think that house is the subject, because it comes directly in front of the verb was. House is not the subject, however, because it is the object of the preposition behind. The subject of the sentence is bicycles, and the subject bicycles comes after the verb because of the place expression behind the house. Because the subject bicycles is plural, the verb should be changed to the plural were. In the second example, the subject bicycle comes after the verb were because of the place expression behind the houses. Because the subject bicycle is singular, the verb should be changed to the singular was.

Exercise

Complete the following exercises to reinforce what you’ve learned:

EXERCISE 22: Each of the following sentences contains an inverted subject and verb. Circle the word or group of words that causes the subject and verb to invert. Find the subject and verb that follow these words. Underline the subject once and the verb twice. Then indicate if the sentences are correct (C) or incorrect (I).

  1. _C_ (Only once) this morning were the letters delivered by the campus mail service.
  2. _I_ (Around the corner and to the right) is the rooms that have been assigned to that program.
  3. ___ What in the world is the children trying to do?
  4. ___ John would be studying the chapters were he able to get hold of the book.
  5. ___ This chapter has many more exercises than do the next one.
  6. ___ The computer programmer was unaware that there was so many mistakes in the program he had written.
  7. ___ Seldom in the history of television has two new comedies been so successful in one season.
  8. ___ How many huge mistakes have the teacher actually found in the research paper?
  9. ___ The new phone system is able to hold far more messages than was the phone system that had previously been used.
  10. _____ In the parking lot south of the stadium was the cars that were about to be towed.

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