Agreement (linguistics)


Agreement or concord happens when a word changes form depending on the other words to which it relates. It is an instance of inflection, and usually involves making the value of some grammatical category "agree" between varied words or parts of the sentence.
For example, in Standard English, one may say I am or he is, but not "I is" or "he am". This is because the grammar of the language requires that the verb and its subject agree in person. The pronouns I and he are first and third person respectively, as are the verb forms am and is. The verb form must be selected so that it has the same person as the subject in contrast to notional agreement, which is based on meaning. For instance, in American English the phrase the United Nations is treated as singular for purposes of agreement even though it is formally plural.

By category

Agreement generally involves matching the value of some grammatical category between different constituents of a sentence. Some categories that commonly trigger grammatical agreement are noted below.

Person

Agreement based on grammatical person is found mostly between verb and subject. An example from English has been given in the introduction to this article.
Agreement between pronoun and antecedent also requires the selection of the correct person. For example, if the antecedent is the first person noun phrase Mary and I, then a first person pronoun is required; however, most noun phrases are third person, and are replaced by a third person pronoun.

Number

Agreement based on grammatical number can occur between verb and subject, as in the case of grammatical person discussed above. In fact the two categories are often conflated within verb conjugation patterns: there are specific verb forms for first person singular, second person plural and so on. Some examples:
Again as with person, there is agreement in number between pronouns and antecedents:
Agreement also occurs between nouns and their specifier and modifiers, in some situations. This is common in languages such as French and Spanish, where articles, determiners and adjectives agree in number with the nouns they qualify:
In English this is not such a common feature, although there are certain determiners that occur specifically with singular or plural nouns only:
In languages in which grammatical gender plays a significant role, there is often agreement in gender between a noun and its modifiers. For example, in French:
Such agreement is also found with predicate adjectives: l'homme est grand vs. la chaise est grande.
In the case of verbs, gender agreement is less common, although it may still occur. For example, in the French compound past tense, the past participle agrees in certain circumstances with the subject or with an object. In Russian and most other Slavic languages, the form of the past tense agrees in gender with the subject.
There is also agreement in gender between pronouns and antecedents. Examples of this can be found in English :
For more detail see Gender in English.

Case

In languages that have a system of cases, there is often agreement by case between a noun and its modifiers. For example, in German:
In fact, the modifiers of nouns in languages such as German and Latin agree with their nouns in number, gender and case; all three categories are conflated together in paradigms of declension.
Case agreement is not a significant feature of English. Agreement between such pronouns can sometimes be observed:
A rare type of agreement that phonologically copies parts of the head rather than agreeing with a grammatical category. For example, in Bainouk:
katama-ŋɔ in-ka / katama-ā-ŋɔ in-ka-ā
river-prox. this / river-pl-prox. these
In this example, what is copied is not a prefix, but rather the initial syllable of the head "river".

By language

Languages can have no conventional agreement whatsoever, as in Japanese or Malay; barely any, as in English; a small amount, as in spoken French; a moderate amount, as in Greek or Latin; or a large amount, as in Swahili.

English

Modern English does not have a particularly large amount of agreement, although it is present.
Apart from verbs, the main examples are the determiners “this” and “that”, which become “these” and “those” respectively when the following noun is plural:
All regular verbs in English agree in the third-person singular of the present indicative by adding a suffix of either -s or -es. The latter is generally used after stems ending in the sibilants sh, ch, ss or zz
Present tense of to love:
There are not many irregularities in this formation:
The highly irregular verb to be is the only verb with more agreement than this in the present tense.
Present tense of to be:
In English, defective verbs generally show no agreement for person or number, they include the modal verbs: can, may, shall, will, must, should, ought.
In Early Modern English agreement existed for the second person singular of all verbs in the present tense, as well as in the past tense of some common verbs. This was usually in the form -est, but -st and -t also occurred. Note that this does not affect the endings for other persons and numbers.
Example present tense forms: thou wilt, thou shalt, thou art, thou hast, thou canst.
Example past tense forms: thou wouldst, thou shouldst, thou wast, thou hadst, thou couldst
Note also the agreement shown by to be even in the subjunctive mood.
However, for nearly all regular verbs, a separate thou form was no longer commonly used in the past tense. Thus the auxiliary verb to do is used, e.g. thou didst help, not *thou helpedst.
Here are some special cases:
For Compound/Combined/Collective Subjects
• Two or more subjects joined by and take a plural verb.
- The MD and the CEO of the company have arrived.
- Time and tide wait for none.
- Weal and woe come by turns.
- Day and night are alike to a blind man.
• If the nouns, however, suggest one idea or refer to the same thing or person, the verb singular.
- The good and generous thinks the whole world is friendly.
- The new bed and breakfast opens this week.
- The MD and CEO has arived.
• Words joined to a subject by with, in addition to, along with, as well, etc are parenthetical and the verb agrees with the original subject.
• When subjects are joined by or, nor, etc., the verb agrees with the nearer subject.
- Success or failure depends on individuals.
- Neither I nor you are to blame.
- Either you or he has to go.
• Objects with two parts such as dresses like trousers, pants, gloves, breaches, jeans, tights, shorts, pajamas, drawers etc. and instruments like scissors, tweezers, shears, binoculars, tongs, glasses, specs, bellows, pincers etc. take a plural verb when used in the crude form and are singular when used with a pair of.
• A collective noun is singular when thought of as a unit and plural when the individuals are considered.
- The jury has arrived at an unanimous decision.
- The committee are divided in their opinion.- His family is quite large.
- His family have given him full support in his times of grief.
Always Singular
• Indefinite pronouns like one, all, everyone, everything, everybody, nothing, nobody, anyone, anything, anybody, another etc. are treated as singular.
- All's well that ends well.
- One sows, another reaps.
- Nothing succeeds like success.
Exceptions: None is construed in the singular or plural as the sense may require, though the plural is commonly used.
- None so deaf as those who don't hear.
- The pupils each have to pay the fees.
• Words after each, every and many a are treated singular.
- Every dog is a lion at home.
- Many a penny makes a pound.
• A measurement or quantity is treated as singular.
Exceptions: Fraction or percentage can be singular or plural based on the noun that follows it.
- Half a loaf is better than no bread.
- One in three people globally do not have access to safe drinking water.
• A Question with who or what takes a singular verb.
- Who is to bell the cat?
Always Plural
• In Subjective mood:
- I wish I were a bird!
• A quantity expressing a certain number of items is plural. Eg- dozen, score
• A Phrase of the form The+Adjective is plural.
• Some words appear singular but are plural: police, cattle, etc.
Singular or Plural
Pains and means can be singular or plural but the construction must be consistent. In the sense of wealth, means always takes a plural verb.

Latin

Compared with English, Latin is an example of a highly inflected language. The consequences for agreement are thus:
Verbs must agree in person and number, and sometimes in gender, with their subjects. Articles and adjectives must agree in case, number and gender with the nouns they modify.
Sample Latin verb: the present indicative active of portare, to carry:
In Latin, a pronoun such as "ego" and "tu" is only inserted for contrast and selection. Proper nouns and common nouns functioning as subject are nonetheless frequent. For this reason, Latin is described as a null-subject language.

French

Spoken French always distinguishes the second person plural, and the first person plural in formal speech, from each other and from the rest of the present tense in all verbs in the first conjugation other than aller. The first person plural form and pronoun are now usually replaced by the pronoun on and a third person singular verb form in Modern French. Thus, nous travaillons becomes on travaille. In most verbs from the other conjugations, each person in the plural can be distinguished among themselves and from the singular forms, again, when using the traditional first person plural. The other endings that appear in written French are often pronounced the same, except in liaison contexts. Irregular verbs such as être, faire, aller, and avoir possess more distinctly pronounced agreement forms than regular verbs.
An example of this is the verb travailler, which goes as follows :
On the other hand, a verb like partir has :
The final S or T is silent, and the other three forms sound different from one another and from the singular forms.
Adjectives agree in gender and number with the nouns that they modify in French. As with verbs, the agreements are sometimes only shown in spelling since forms that are written with different agreement suffixes are sometimes pronounced the same ; although in many cases the final consonant is pronounced in feminine forms, but silent in masculine forms. Most plural forms end in -s, but this consonant is only pronounced in liaison contexts, and it is determinants that help understand if the singular or plural is meant. The participles of verbs agree in gender and number with the subject or object in some instances.
Articles, possessives and other determinants also decline for number and for gender, with plural determinants being the same for both genders. This normally produces three forms: one for masculine singular nouns, one for feminine singular nouns, and another for plural nouns of either gender:
Notice that some of the above also change if the following word begins with a vowel: le and la become l′, du and de la become de l′, ma becomes mon and ce becomes cet.

Hungarian

In Hungarian, verbs have polypersonal agreement, which means they agree with more than one of the verb's arguments: not only its subject but also its object. Difference is made between the case when there is a definite object and the case when the object is indefinite or there is no object at all. Examples: Szeretek, szeretem, szeretlek ; szeret, szereti. Of course, nouns or pronouns may specify the exact object. In short, there is agreement between a verb and the person and number of its subject and the specificity of its object.
The predicate agrees in number with the subject and if it is copulative, both parts agree in number with the subject. For example: A könyvek érdekesek voltak "The books were interesting" : the plural is marked on the subject as well as both the adjectival and the copulative part of the predicate.
Within noun phrases, adjectives do not show agreement with the noun, though pronouns do. e.g. a szép könyveitekkel "with your nice books" : the suffixes of the plural, the possessive "your" and the case marking "with" are only marked on the noun.

Scandinavian languages

Adjectives">Adjective">Adjectives

In the Scandinavian languages, adjectives are declined according to the gender, number, and definiteness of the noun they modify. In Icelandic and Faroese, adjectives are also declined according to grammatical case, unlike the other Scandinavian languages.
In some cases in Swedish, Norwegian and Danish, adjectives and participles as predicates appear to disagree with their subjects. This phenomenon is referred to as pancake sentences.
Examples (Norwegian)
In Norwegian nynorsk, Swedish, Icelandic and Faroese the past participle must agree in gender, number and definiteness when the participle is in an attributive or predicative position. In Icelandic and Faroese, past participles would also have to agree in grammatical case.
In Norwegian bokmål and Danish it is only required to decline past participles in number and definiteness when in an attributive position.

Slavic languages

Most Slavic languages are highly inflected, except for Bulgarian and Macedonian. The agreement is similar to Latin, for instance between adjectives and nouns in gender, number, case and animacy. The following examples are from Serbo-Croatian:
Verbs have 6 different forms in the present tense, for three persons in singular and plural. As in Latin, subject is frequently dropped.
Another characteristic is agreement in participles, which have different forms for different genders:

Swahili

, like all other Bantu languages, has numerous noun classes. Verbs must agree in class with their subjects and objects, and adjectives with the nouns that they qualify. For example: Kitabu kimoja kitatosha , Mchungwa mmoja utatosha, Chungwa moja litatosha.
There is also agreement in number. For example: Vitabu viwili vitatosha, Michungwa miwili itatosha, Machungwa mawili yatatosha.
Class and number are indicated with prefixes, which are not always the same for nouns, adjectives and verbs, as illustrated by the examples.