{"slug":"agreement-a-taxonomy","title":"Agreement | A taxonomy","date":"2026-03-06T08:42:46.836Z","excerpt":"","tags":["language","taxonomy"],"order":49,"published":true,"content":"

In the study of English grammar, agreement — also called concord — is the grammatical phenomenon by which one element in a sentence takes a form that is determined by the properties of another element. English agreement is analyzed according to three primary criteria: the controller (the element whose grammatical properties determine the form of another element), the target (the element whose form is controlled), and the feature (the grammatical property — number, person, or gender — that is being matched). As agreement in English operates across multiple relationships simultaneously — a subject controls the form of its verb while also controlling the form of pronouns that refer to it later in the discourse — these relationships are best understood as overlapping systems rather than a single uniform phenomenon.

Agreement is the grammatical mechanism of coherence. It is the system by which different parts of a sentence are tied together — by which the verb acknowledges its subject, by which a pronoun reaches back through the discourse to retrieve its antecedent, by which the elements of a clause signal their relationships to one another not just through word order but through the forms of the words themselves. In a language like Latin, agreement is pervasive and morphologically elaborate — every noun, adjective, and verb carries agreement markers for case, number, and gender. English has shed most of this morphological complexity over the course of its history, retaining agreement in a small but grammatically significant set of relationships. What remains is lean, precise, and — in the edge cases — remarkably subtle.

1. Subject-Verb Agreement

Subject-verb agreement is the requirement that the verb matches its subject in number (singular or plural) and person (first, second, or third). In English this is morphologically visible primarily in the third person singular present tense, where the verb adds -s or -es, and in the present and past tense forms of the verb be.

A. The Basic Paradigm

Regular Verbs — Present Tense:

\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n

Person	Singular	Plural
First	I work	we work
Second	you work	you work
Third	she/he/it works	they work

The only morphological distinction in regular verbs is the third person singular -s — all other forms are identical. This means that subject-verb agreement in English is a relatively weak system compared to many other languages, but its few distinctions are nonetheless grammatically obligatory and socially significant.

The Verb Be — Present Tense:

\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n

Person	Singular	Plural
First	I am	we are
Second	you are	you are
Third	she/he/it is	they are

The Verb Be — Past Tense:

\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n

Person	Singular	Plural
First	I was	we were
Second	you were	you were
Third	she/he/it was	they were

Be is by far the most morphologically complex verb in English, with eight distinct forms (be, am, is, are, was, were, been, being) compared to the four or five forms of most other verbs.

The Verb Have — Present Tense:

\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n

Person	Singular	Plural
First	I have	we have
Second	you have	you have
Third	she/he/it has	they have

B. Agreement with Simple Noun Phrase Subjects

The straightforward case — a single noun phrase subject controlling a verb — presents no difficulty for native speakers. The number of the head noun determines the form of the verb:

Singular head noun → singular verb:

The researcher publishes her findings annually.
A significant correlation exists between the two variables.
The committee has reached a decision.

Plural head noun → plural verb:

The researchers publish their findings annually.
Significant correlations exist across all three datasets.
The results have been independently verified.

C. Agreement Complications

The interesting and linguistically revealing cases of subject-verb agreement are the complications — the environments in which the rule is not straightforward and speakers must navigate between competing principles.

Collective Nouns:

Collective nouns name groups of individuals as a single entity: committee, team, government, faculty, jury, audience, staff, family, crew, panel, board.

In British English, collective nouns freely take either singular or plural agreement depending on whether the group is being conceptualized as a unified entity or as a collection of individuals:

Singular agreement — group as unit:

The committee has reached its decision.
The team is performing well.
The government has announced its policy.

Plural agreement — group as individuals:

The committee have reached their decision.
The team are performing well.
The government have announced their policy.

In American English, collective nouns almost always take singular agreement — the plural is marked and relatively rare. The British flexibility reflects a genuine grammatical option; the American singular reflects a stronger convention.

Certain collective nouns show strong preferences one way or the other even in British English:

The police are investigating. (almost always plural — even in American English)
The public are divided. (British plural preferred)
The clergy are debating the issue. (plural preferred)
The staff are working overtime. (British plural natural)

Coordinated Subjects:

When two or more subjects are joined by a coordinating conjunction, the agreement of the verb depends on the conjunction used.

Subjects joined by and — typically plural:

The researcher and her colleague have published the findings.
Patience and rigor are essential to good research.
The data and the methodology were both questioned.

Exception — singular when the coordinated elements form a single concept:

Trial and error is the foundation of experimental science. (a single methodology)
Bread and butter is all she had. (a single food)
The sum and substance of the argument is this. (a single thing)

Exception — singular when both elements refer to the same entity:

My colleague and closest friend has published the paper. (one person)
The founder and chair is addressing the committee. (one person)

Subjects joined by or and nor — proximity agreement:\nWhen subjects are joined by or or nor, the verb agrees with the subject closest to it — this is the principle of proximity agreement:

Either the primary investigator or her colleagues are responsible. (plural subject closer — plural verb)
Either her colleagues or the primary investigator is responsible. (singular subject closer — singular verb)
Neither the data nor the methodology was sound. (singular subject closer — singular verb)
Neither the methodology nor the results were convincing. (plural subject closer — plural verb)

In practice, when the two subjects differ in number, many writers rearrange the sentence to put the plural subject closer to the verb, as the plural verb sounds more natural: either the investigator or her colleagues are responsible is preferred over either the colleagues or the investigator is responsible.

Indefinite Pronouns:

Indefinite pronouns present a consistent agreement challenge. The following take singular agreement despite referring to potentially multiple individuals:

Always singular: everyone, everybody, everything, someone, somebody, something, anyone, anybody, anything, no one, nobody, nothing, each, either, neither, one

Everyone has submitted their data. (singular verb — has)
Nobody was informed of the decision. (singular)
Each of the participants was briefed separately. (singular)
Either of the methodologies is acceptable. (singular)
Neither of the hypotheses was supported. (singular)
Someone has left their notes in the conference room. (singular verb, singular referent — but their for pronoun — see pronoun-antecedent agreement)

Variable — none, some, any, all, most, more:

These pronouns can take either singular or plural agreement depending on whether the noun they refer to is count or mass:

None of the participants have completed the study. (count noun — plural natural)
None of the data has been verified. (mass noun — singular)
All of the researchers were present. (count noun — plural)
All of the information was disclosed. (mass noun — singular)
Most of the findings are significant. (count noun — plural)
Most of the evidence is circumstantial. (mass noun — singular)

Subjects with Intervening Phrases:

When the grammatical subject is separated from the verb by an intervening phrase, the verb must agree with the head of the subject noun phrase — not with the nearest noun, which may differ in number:

The quality of the results is questionable. (subject = quality, singular — not results)
The significance of the findings remains unclear. (subject = significance — not findings)
A number of participants have withdrawn. (subject = a number — treated as plural)
The number of participants has increased. (subject = the number — treated as singular)
One of the researchers has published the paper. (subject = one — singular)

The a number of / the number of distinction is one of the most reliable and most frequently tested agreement rules in formal English:

A number of — treated as plural (a number of researchers have applied)
The number of — treated as singular (the number of researchers has increased)

Inverted Sentences:

In sentences where the subject follows the verb — in existential there constructions and in stylistically inverted sentences — the verb must still agree with the true subject, not with any preceding element:

Existential there constructions:

There is a problem with the methodology. (subject = a problem — singular)
There are several problems with the methodology. (subject = several problems — plural)
There was a significant finding. (singular)
There were three significant findings. (plural)

Stylistic inversion:

Among the most significant findings is the unexpected correlation. (subject = the unexpected correlation — singular)
Among the most significant findings are the three replicated results. (subject = the three replicated results — plural)

Titles, Names, and Quoted Expressions:

Titles of works, names of organizations, and quoted expressions take singular agreement regardless of their grammatical form:

The Federalist Papers is essential reading for students of American government. (singular — a single work)
Findings and Conclusions is the final section of the report. (singular — a single section)
Three months is a long time to wait for peer review. (singular — a single period)
Twenty kilometers is the distance to the nearest research station. (singular — a single distance)

Amounts and Measurements:

Amounts and measurements take singular agreement when they are conceived as a single quantity:

Three years is a long time to spend on a single study.
Five hundred pages is an extraordinary length for a dissertation.
Ten milligrams is the recommended dosage.

Data, Criteria, Phenomena, and Other Borrowed Plurals:

Several nouns borrowed from Latin and Greek retain their original plural forms in English, creating agreement complications because their plural forms are not immediately recognizable as plural:

\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n

Singular	Plural
datum	data
criterion	criteria
phenomenon	phenomena
medium	media
stratum	strata
curriculum	curricula
bacterium	bacteria
hypothesis	hypotheses
analysis	analyses
thesis	theses

In formal academic writing, these plurals take plural agreement:

The data suggest a correlation. (formal — data as plural)
The criteria are clearly defined.
The phenomena were observed under controlled conditions.
The media have reported the findings.

In informal and general use, data is increasingly treated as a mass noun taking singular agreement (the data is clear), and media is similarly used as a singular (the media is biased). Whether to follow the formal plural or the informal singular convention is a stylistic and disciplinary choice — scientific writing strongly favors the formal plural; journalism and general prose increasingly accept the singular.

Notional Agreement vs. Formal Agreement:

English allows — to a greater degree than many languages — a choice between formal agreement (based on the grammatical form of the subject) and notional agreement (based on the meaning or sense of the subject). Notional agreement is most common with collective nouns and with quantified expressions:

Formal agreement (grammatical form controls):

The committee has reached its decision. (committee = singular form → singular verb)
The majority was in favor. (majority = singular form → singular verb)

Notional agreement (meaning controls):

The committee have reached their decision. (committee = a group of people → plural verb)
The majority were in favor. (majority = many people → plural verb)

Neither is wrong — the choice reflects how the speaker conceptualizes the subject.

2. Pronoun-Antecedent Agreement

Pronoun-antecedent agreement is the requirement that a pronoun matches its antecedent — the noun phrase it refers to — in number, person, and gender. This is the agreement system that operates across clause and sentence boundaries, maintaining reference coherence through the discourse.

A. The Basic Requirements

A pronoun must agree with its antecedent in three features:

Number: singular antecedent → singular pronoun; plural antecedent → plural pronoun\nPerson: first/second/third person antecedent → corresponding person pronoun\nGender: masculine/feminine/neuter antecedent → he/she/it (and their case forms)

Straightforward cases:

The researcher published her findings. (her agrees with the researcher — singular, third person, feminine)
The researchers published their findings. (their agrees with the researchers — plural, third person)
The committee released its report. (its agrees with the committee — singular, third person, neuter)
She analyzed the data and published it. (it agrees with the data — singular, third person, neuter)

B. Agreement Complications

Generic and Indefinite Antecedents:

The most persistent and most contested agreement issue in contemporary English concerns pronouns with generic or indefinite antecedents — cases where the antecedent refers to an unspecified individual whose gender is unknown or irrelevant.

Historically, formal English prescribed the use of he as a generic singular pronoun — the so-called generic he — representing an unspecified person of either gender:

Every researcher must submit his data by Friday. (traditional generic he)
A student who fails the examination may resit it if he chooses.

This usage is now widely regarded as gender-biased and has been largely abandoned in formal and academic writing. Three alternatives are available:

Singular they — the most natural and most widely accepted solution:

Every researcher must submit their data by Friday.
A student who fails the examination may resit it if they choose.
Someone left their notes in the conference room.

Singular they has a long history in English — it appears in Shakespeare, Austen, and the King James Bible — and its use with generic indefinite antecedents is now fully standard in virtually all registers including formal academic writing.

He or she — explicit dual reference:

Every researcher must submit his or her data by Friday.
A student who fails the examination may resit it if he or she chooses.

He or she is formally correct but stylistically cumbersome, particularly when repeated across a long passage. It is increasingly rare in natural writing.

Revision to avoid the problem:

All researchers must submit their data by Friday. (plural subject — no generic pronoun needed)
Students who fail the examination may resit it.

Collective Noun Antecedents:

Collective noun antecedents present the same singular/plural ambiguity for pronouns as for verbs:

The committee reached its decision unanimously. (committee as unit — singular pronoun)
The committee reached their decision after hours of debate. (committee as individuals — plural pronoun)

In American English the singular pronoun is strongly preferred with collective nouns. In British English both are standard.

Proximity vs. Grammatical Agreement:

In informal speech, pronoun agreement is sometimes controlled by the nearest noun rather than the grammatical antecedent — a form of notional or proximity agreement:

The box of samples was left on the bench. They need to be refrigerated. (informal — they refers to samples, not the grammatical antecedent box)
Every one of the researchers has submitted their report. (their refers notionally to researchers rather than grammatically to every one)

This proximity agreement is natural in speech but may be considered a stylistic lapse in formal writing, where strict grammatical agreement with the head noun of the subject is expected.

Antecedents Joined by Or and Nor:

When an antecedent consists of two elements joined by or or nor, pronoun agreement follows the same proximity principle as verb agreement — the pronoun agrees with the nearer antecedent:

Neither the primary investigator nor her colleagues have submitted their reports. (their agrees with colleagues — plural, nearer)
Either she or he will present his findings. (his agrees with he — singular masculine, nearer)

When the two antecedents differ in gender, proximity agreement can produce awkward results. Revision is usually the best solution:

Either John or Mary will present their findings. (singular they avoids the his/her problem)
John and Mary will present their findings. (coordinated with and — plural their is unambiguous)

C. Reflexive Pronoun Agreement

Reflexive pronouns — myself, yourself, himself, herself, itself, ourselves, yourselves, themselves — must agree with their antecedent in person, number, and gender. They are used when the subject and object of the clause are coreferential — when they refer to the same entity:

She reviewed herself in the recording. (herself agrees with she — singular, third person, feminine)
The committee congratulated itself on the outcome. (itself agrees with the committee — singular, neuter)
They contradicted themselves repeatedly. (themselves agrees with they — plural)

A common informal usage that formal grammar treats as non-standard is the use of reflexive pronouns as substitutes for personal pronouns in coordinate structures, often as a form of hypercorrection:

Please contact myself if you have questions. ✗ (formal — should be me)
She invited my colleague and myself to present. ✗ (formal — should be me)

The reflexive requires a coreferential antecedent in the same clause. When myself is used without such an antecedent, it is functioning as an emphatic form or as informal substitute for me — both of which are non-standard in formal writing.

3. Determiner Agreement

Determiners must agree with the nouns they modify in number. This is a simpler system than subject-verb agreement but generates its own set of complications.

Singular count nouns require a singular determiner and cannot appear without a determiner:

a researcher, the researcher, this researcher, every researcher, each researcher
?researcher published the findings. ✗ (no determiner — ungrammatical)

Plural count nouns require a plural determiner or no determiner:

researchers, the researchers, these researchers, all researchers, some researchers
?a researchers ✗ (singular determiner with plural noun — ungrammatical)

Mass nouns take no indefinite article and require mass-compatible quantifiers:

the evidence, some evidence, much evidence, all evidence, no evidence
?an evidence, ?many evidences ✗ (count determiners with mass noun — non-standard)

Determiners that vary by number:

\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n

Singular	Plural
this	these
that	those
every	— (no plural)
each	— (no plural)
either	— (no plural)
neither	— (no plural)
—	both (no singular)
much	many
little	few
a little	a few
a great deal of	a great many

4. Agreement in Special Constructions

A. Existential There Constructions

In existential there constructions, the grammatical subject — the noun phrase following the verb — controls agreement, not the expletive there which occupies the subject position:

There is a significant flaw in the methodology. (a significant flaw — singular → singular verb)
There are several significant flaws in the methodology. (several significant flaws — plural → plural verb)
There was an unexpected result. (singular)
There were three unexpected results. (plural)

In informal spoken English, there's is widely used with plural subjects — there's several problems here — but this is non-standard in formal writing.

B. Cleft Sentences

In cleft sentences (it is/was X that...), the verb in the main clause always takes singular form, regardless of the number of the focused element:

It is the results that are significant. (main clause verb is = singular; relative clause verb are agrees with the results)
It was the researchers who conducted the study.
It is the methodology and the sample selection that are most problematic. (main clause is singular; relative clause are plural — agrees with the focused noun phrase)

C. Relative Clauses

In relative clauses, the verb agrees with the relative pronoun's antecedent — the noun phrase in the main clause that the relative pronoun refers to:

The researcher who conducted the study has published her findings. (who refers to the researcher — singular → has)
The researchers who conducted the study have published their findings. (who refers to the researchers — plural → have)
It is the researchers who are responsible. (who refers to the researchers — plural → are)
It is the researcher who is responsible. (who refers to the researcher — singular → is)

The construction one of the X who/that creates a classic agreement ambiguity:

She is one of the researchers who has/have published in this area.

Strict formal grammar prescribes plural agreement (have published) because the relative pronoun who refers to researchers (the antecedent), not to one. But singular agreement (has published) is extremely common in practice because one is the more psychologically prominent element. Both are found in edited prose; the plural is the formally prescribed option.

D. Predicative Agreement

When a noun phrase subject and a noun phrase subject complement differ in number, the verb agrees with the subject — not the complement:

The real problem is the inconsistent results. (subject = the real problem — singular → is)
The inconsistent results are the real problem. (subject = the inconsistent results — plural → are)
The greatest challenge is the competing methodologies. (subject = the greatest challenge — singular)
The competing methodologies are the greatest challenge. (subject = the competing methodologies — plural)

5. Formal vs. Notional Agreement: A Summary

The most important conceptual distinction in the analysis of English agreement is between formal agreement — where the grammatical form of the controller determines the form of the target — and notional agreement — where the meaning or sense of the controller determines the form of the target. English permits both, and the choice between them is one of the most revealing sites of variation between formal and informal registers, between British and American usage, and between prescriptive rules and actual practice.

Formal agreement is the rule in:

Standard American English with collective nouns (the committee has reached its decision)
Formal writing in both varieties for indefinite pronouns (everyone has submitted his or her data — though singular they is now displacing this)
All formal writing for borrowed plurals (the data suggest, the criteria are)

Notional agreement is natural in:

British English with collective nouns (the committee have reached their decision)
All informal speech with generic indefinites (everyone has submitted their data)
Informal constructions with partitive phrases (a box of samples — they need to be refrigerated)

The prescriptive tradition in English has generally favored formal agreement and has treated notional agreement as an error. The descriptive tradition recognizes both as grammatically legitimate, noting that the choice encodes social, regional, and stylistic information rather than grammatical correctness or incorrectness.

Conclusion

This taxonomy demonstrates that English agreement is a lean but precisely organized system operating across subject-verb, pronoun-antecedent, and determiner-noun relationships simultaneously. Where Latin or Russian would mark agreement across every noun, adjective, and verb in a clause, English confines its morphological agreement to a small set of relationships — but within those relationships the rules are systematic, the complications are revealing, and the choices between formal and notional agreement encode genuine social and stylistic meaning.

The most significant developments in English agreement in recent decades concern pronoun-antecedent agreement with generic and non-binary antecedents — the rise of singular they as the standard solution to the generic pronoun problem, and its extension to individuals who use they/them pronouns. These developments are not a breakdown of the agreement system but an evolution of it — the system is adapting, as it always has, to meet the communicative needs of its speakers.