SVA NOTES LEVEL 4: Inverted Subjects

BASIC: How are the relatives taking the bad news?

Subject (sing) + verb (+s) // Subject (pl) + verb
LEVEL 1: Clause between subject and verb does not change SVA. LEVEL 5: Collective nouns (group, jury, crowd, team) = can be singular/plural
depending on the unit
Subject + clause + verb
The women who went to the meeting left the room.
The jury has awarded custody to the grandmother.
LEVEL 2: Indefinite pronoun subjects
The jury members have been arguing for five days.
i) Singular indefinite pronoun takes singular verbs: each, either,
neither, one, no one, nobody, nothing, anyone, anybody, anything,
someone, somebody, something everyone, everybody, everything
LEVEL 6: Titles of single entities (books, organisations, etc) are always singular.
Subject (sing) + verb (+s)
Everyone sleeps during the boring lecture.
The Grapes of Wrath takes a long time to read.
ii) Plural indefinite pronoun takes plural verbs: several, few, both, many
Subject (pl) + verb
LEVEL 7: Plural form subjects
Both sleep during the boring lecture.
i) Plural form subjects with a singular meaning take a singular verb
iii) Uncountable and countable indefinite pronoun: some, any, none, all, most (depends on meaning): news, physics, mathematics, politics
a. Uncountable = singular ii) Plural form subjects with a plural meaning take plural verb:
b. Countable = plural
The scissors are on the table.
Some of the sugar is on the floor. Sugar = uncountable = singular
Some of the mushrooms are dirty. Mushroom = countable = plural LEVEL 10: The verb always agrees with the subject
LEVEL 3: Compound subjects My favourite topic is POEMS by Longfellow.
i) AND = plural
A pencil and an eraser make writing easier. LEVEL 11: One of those people _______ who (are) : use plural verb
ii) OR = verb agrees with the subject nearer to it. The only one of those ________ who (is) : use singular verb
Neither the director nor the actors are following the lines closely.
 Conditional 3: to refer to the past and situations that did not happen
CONDITIONALS Perfect tense
Conditional 1: to express a simple statement of fact or intent  If you had…. You would have + [perfect verb]….
Future tense
 If I…. will + [future verb]…. ____________________________________________________________

If I win the lottery I will buy a new car.  If she hadn’t… she would have + [perfect verb]….
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 She will…. If she + [present verb]…. ____________________________________________________________

She will lose all her friends if she continues to to talk about them behind
their backs.

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Conditional 2: to refer to a present unreal situation or to a situation in the future
that the speaker thinks is unlikely to happen
Past tense

 If I had…. I would + [root verb]….

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 If I were…. I would + [root verb]….

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 If I was…. I would + [root verb]….

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