On a noun, an -s means more than one: book, books. On a verb it means the opposite. She walks has one walker. This lesson states the rule that goes with it, scores it on every pronoun and the verb after it in one chapter of a novel, and finds that it holds in 74 pairs of 75.
Core ideas
Three ideas. The first one corrects a habit from nouns.
On a noun the ending marks more than one. On a verb it marks a subject that is exactly one thing and is not you or me: he, she, it, or a name or a noun that stands for one thing. A word such as he that stands in for a noun is a pronoun. The boy walks and the boys walk have the ending in opposite places.
Be, have and do do not add an -s. They change word: is, has, does, and was for the past of be. The same subjects take them. Everyone else takes are, have, do and were, and I takes am.
Look at the rows the lab does not score. They are she thought, they went, I would. A past form such as thought and a modal verb such as would do not change with the subject, so the agreement rule has nothing to check. It checks the present tense, and was against were.
The material
One pair in 75 breaks the rule. It breaks it on purpose, and the rows around it show why.
Here is a habit from nouns that does damage on verbs. An -s on a noun means more than one: book, books. So when students see an -s on a verb they read it as more than one too, and write they walks.
It means the reverse. In she walks one person walks. The rule for the present tense is short enough to say in one breath: the third person, which is he, she, it and any one thing named in their place, takes the form with -s. Everyone else takes the bare form, the verb with nothing added.
Be, have and do are the three most used helping verbs, and they follow the same rule with different words. Be gives is for he, she and it, are for you, we and they, and am for I. Have gives has and have. Do gives does and do. In the past, be splits again: was for I, he, she and it, were for the rest.
The lab runs the rule on one chapter of Pride and Prejudice, Chapter XXVI, which has 216 pronoun subjects. It reads the word after each one. If that word is a present form, was, were or a bare verb, the pair can be scored, and there are 75 of those. The rule holds in 74, which is 98.7%.
The other 141 pronoun subjects are followed by a word the rule cannot use: she thought, they went, I would, he ought. A past form and a modal look the same whatever the subject. So most of what an English sentence does with its verb is outside this rule, and the rule is only about the present tense and the two forms of was.
One pair goes against the rule, and it is not a mistake. In the chapter, Elizabeth writes if I were not afraid of judging. The if marks a case that is not real, and English keeps were for that, for every subject, including I. It is old, it is rare, and the lab names it and sets it aside.
Because 75 pairs is a small count, the lesson also quotes the whole novel. These figures were counted once, away from the page, over all of it, and no page can carry them. After he, she and it there are 1,214 third person forms and 37 others. After you, we and they there are 487 forms for more than one and 5 third person ones. The chapter is a sample of a pattern, not an accident.
Choose the two modern documents in the lab. The Supreme Court opinion and the Census Bureau story give 14 pairs and the rule holds in all 14, as it does in a chapter two hundred years older.
Interactive
Every pronoun, modal, have, be and not in the chapter, and what comes next
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Method
Three questions, in this order.
Then use am for be, was in the past, and the bare form of every other verb: I walk, I have, I do.
Then use the third person form: is, has, does, was, or the bare verb with an -s on it. The letter says, Jane has.
Then use are, have, do, were, or the bare verb. You takes these even when it means one person.
Then stop. Nothing changes with the subject, and the rule has nothing to say. She could, they could; he walked, we walked.
Take the same verbs and change the subject. The first three rows follow the rule. The last is the single row in the chapter that does not.
I were is not a mistake here. The chapter reads if I were not afraid of judging, and the if is the reason: the sentence is about a case that is not real, and English keeps an old form, were, for every subject, to say so. The lab prints it as it if i were not and marks it against the rule. Counted once over the whole novel, which no page can carry, and quoted here: after he, she and it the novel has 1,214 third person forms against 37 others; after you, we and they it has 487 forms for more than one against 5 third person ones. Of the 37, 22 are this same form: if it were, she were, he were. The other 15, and all 5, are rows the one-word scan misread: could she have seen, where the helping verb stands in front of its subject, and believing it are or required of you is, where the pronoun is an object and the verb belongs to another subject.
You should be able to choose between is and are, has and have, does and do, was and were for any subject, read the rule's score off the pairs in a printed chapter, and name the one kind of row that breaks it on purpose.
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