SUBJECT – VERB AGREEMENT IN ENGLISH AND RUSSIAN

THEORETICAL LINGUISTICS

A RESEARCH PAPER

SUBMITTED TO: Cem Bozsahin

BY: Elena Ghinda

 2008

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INTRODUCTION

What is an agreement? We should identify and understand

this term because it is essential in all languages. In this paper I

will introduce you to the topic of subject-verb agreement, will

analyze different aspects of agreement and will compare two

languages with different subject – verb agreement features.

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SUBJECT – VERB AGREEMENT (SVA)

In grammar, subject-verb agreement means that subjects and verbs in clauses must match each other in form.

To agree fully, subjects and verbs must match in number (singular or plural) and in person (first, second, and third person), and/or gender.

Faulty subject-verb agreement occurs when a subject and verb does not match in number or in person.  

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Subject-verb agreement can be analyzed by different criteria which

can be easily compared between two languages.

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THE INDEFINITE PRONOUNS ANYONE, EVERYONE, SOMEONE, NO ONE, NOBODY ARE ALWAYS SINGULAR AND, THEREFORE, REQUIRE SINGULAR VERBS.

English: (1) Everyone has finished his or her homework.

(2) Somebody has left her wallet. Russian:

(1) Kajdiy zakonchil svou domashnuu rabotu.

Everyone finish.PAST his/her homework.ACC “Everyone has finished his/her homework”. (2) Kto-to ostavil svoy koshelek. Somebody leave.PAST his/her wallet.ACC “Somebody has left her wallet. 

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In both languages in sentence (1) the gender is not important. These sentences show 3.SING form. But the second sentence shows that this is 3.SING form, but in English we can understand that somebody means “she”, because “her wallet” shows that this is female.

In Russian it is hard to understand what the gender of agent is because “svoy” does not show anything, just explains the “koshelek”[wallet] belonging to the

agent.

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PHRASES SUCH AS TOGETHER WITH, AS WELL AS, AND ALONG WITH ARE NOT THE SAME AS AND.

English: The doctor as well as his brothers is going to prison.

The doctor and his brothers are going to jail.

 

Russian:

Mayor takje kak i ego sestra edit v gorod.

Mayor as well as his sister go.CONT.3SG to city.ACC

“Mayor as well as his sister is going to the city”.

Mayor i ego sestra edut v gorod.

Mayor and his sister be.CONT.3PL to city.ACC

“Mayor and his sister are going to the city.7

The sentence introduced by as well as or along with will modify the earlier word (doctor in this case), but it does not compound the subjects (as the word and would do).

In Russian situation is the same. The words as “vmeste s”[together with], “takje kak i”[as well as] have the same form as in English.

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THE WORDS THERE AND HERE ARE NEVER SUBJECTS.

English: There are many questions. (Plural)

There is a question. (Singular)

 

Russian: Tam esti mnogo druzei. (Plural)

There be.CONT many friend.PL

“There are many friends”.

Tam esti butilka vodi. (Singular)

There be.CONT bottle water.ACC

“There is a bottle of water”.

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In Russian the situation is different because we do not determine subject is it plural or singular. We can see in examples that there is no difference between plural and singular form of the subject, in both cases as plural and singular form of the subject we use “esti” [is/are].

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VERBS IN THE PRESENT AND PAST TENSE FOR THIRD-PERSON, SINGULAR SUBJECTS

English: Elisabeth reads the book.

I/you/we/they watch_ the movie.

 

Russian: Ti slushaeshi muziku.

You listen.CONT.2SG music.ACC

”You listen to the music”.

 

On(ona) slushaet muziku.

He(she) listen.CONT.3SG music.ACC

”He/she listen to the music”.

 

Mi slushaem muziku.

We listen.CONT.1PL music.ACC

”We listen to the music”. 11

In Russian, SVA should be in all 6 cases. Every gender,

every plural and singular form should agree with the verb.

Endings of the verb show which form it is and if we drop

the subject it is easy understandable what subject is, for

example:

Gulyaem v parke.

Walk.CONT in park.ACC

* “Walking in the park”.

 In English this sentence would be incorrect, but in Russian is grammatically right. Ending “em” shows that subject can be only “Mi” [we]. In all 6 cases if we drop the subject would be easy understandable what gender and what form of the subject were dropped.

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WORDS APPEAR TO BE PLURAL BUT ARE SINGULAR English: The news from the front was bad.

Your hair was red two weeks ago.

 

Russian: Novosti iz Aljira bili plohie.

News from Algeria.GEN be.PAST bad.

* “News from Algeria were bad”.

Tvoi volosi bili temnie.

Your hair.PL be.PAST.PL dark.

* “Your hair were dark”.

In Russian it is opposite all plural words have always plural form in sentences,

for example the word: “novosti” (news) “volosi” (hair) have always plural form

in sentences. 13

FRACTIONAL EXPRESSIONS: HALF OF, A PART OF, A PERCENTAGE OF, A MAJORITY OF ARE SINGULAR PLURAL, DEPENDING ON THE MEANING.

English:

Some of the voters are still angry.

A large percentage of the older population is voting against her.

Russian:

1)Nekotorie iz golosovavshih zlyatsa do sih por.

Some of voter.ACC.PL angry.CONT.3PL still.

“Some of the voters are still angry”.

2) Bolishoy protsent vzroslogo naselenia golosovali protiv nee.

Large percentage older population.ACC vote.PAST.3PL against her.

“A large percentage of the older population are voting against her”. 14

In Russian the word “protsent” [percentage] is different from English because verb always has plural form. The word “nekotorie”[some] shows a part of amount and verb always takes plural form.

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SENTENCE STARTS WITH “IT” – SINGULAR, “ETO”[IT] CAN HAVE DIFFERENT FORMS

English: It was the long hours that bothered me. (Singular)It was cold when I was sleeping. (Singular) Russian: Eto prishla devushka druga. (Singular

Fem.)It come.PAST.3SG girl friend.GEN

“It was my friend’s girlfriend”.

In this sentence verb has singular form and it agrees with subject. “Devushka”

[girl] has female gender and verb’s ending shows this.

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Russian:

Eto bilo navodnenie, kotoroe vseh napugalo. (Singular Neut.)

It be.PAST.3sg flood which everybody scare.PAST.PL

“It was flood, which scared everybody”.

 

Eto zvonili oni, kogda ti vihodil. (Plural)

It call.PAST.3pl they when you go out.PAST.2sg

“It was they who called when you were going out”.

Eto[it] has neutral gender and verb has ending “o” what shows that this is

neutral and singular form.

Eto[it] has plural form in the second case.17

THE CATEGORY OF SUBJECT-VERB AGREEMENT

According to the hypothesis (cf. Platzack 2003, Ritter 1995,

Taraldsen 1992) agreement is pronominal in nature.

Déchaine and Wiltschko (2002) argued that there are minimum three types of proforms: proDP, proφP, and

proNP. These pronouns have predictable distributional andinterpretational properties that follow from their

category.

a. ProDP: [DP D [φP φ [NP N]]]

b. ProφP: [φP φ [NP N]]

c. ProNP: [NP N]

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There are minimum three categories of agreement: D-agreement, φ-agreement, and n-agreement. Each agreement category is associated with predictable distributional and interpretational properties. I will presentD-agreement(Russian), φ-agreement (English)

a. D-agreement: [CP ZP [C’–D-agr]] associates with clausal domain ( C )

b. φ-agreement: [TP ZP [T’ –φ-agr]] associates with Tense ( T )

English SVA = φ-agreement: [TP ZP [T –φ-agr]] ( Acc. Déchaine and Wiltschko (2002) )

φ-agreement appears on the verb (1) unless an auxiliary is present (2).

 

(1) a. The boy plays chess.

b. *The boy have plays chess.

(2) a. The boy has played chess.

b. The boys have played chess.

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Supposing that English SVA is associated with T, thus, derives its obvious mobility with respect to the verb; it can only suffix to the verb if the verb itself can be associated with T (3a).  (3) a. [T V–φ-agr ] V ]

b. *[T V–φ-agr] Aux V ]

c. [T Aux–φ-agr ] Aux V ]

 If there is an auxiliary, the association of the verb with T is blocked by some version of the Head-Movement Constraint (Travis 1984) (3b). As a result, SVA is suffixed to the auxiliary (3c).

Since φ-agreement is associated with T, we expect it to be sensitive to tense

distinctions.

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Agreement can arise under Specifier-Head Agreement

(Déchaine & Wiltschko ), φ- agreement, which is associated with T will consequently agree with the constituent: the grammatical subject (cannot be thematic subject) which triggers SVA in English (6).

(6) a. The boy kicks the balls. Active b. The balls are kicked by the boy. Passive * The balls is kicked by the boy. Passive

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Russian=D-agreement [CP ZP [C –D-agr]]. If we claim that SVA in Russian

associates with C is the fact that it can appear on complementizers as in:

Studenti, kotorie kupili knigi, prishli.

Student.3PLM.NOM who.3PL buy.PERF.3PL book.PL.ACC arrive.PERF.3PL

“The students who bought he books arrived.”

 

Furthermore, D-agreement appears on the verb only in that case when the

verb moves to C:

 

Studenti ponyali urok.

Student.3PLM.NOM understand.PERF.3PL lesson.ACC

“The students understood the lesson.” 22

Ultimately, D-agreement appears on elements which can appear

in the C domain, as shown on the basis of wh-relatives (a),

relatives (b), clefts (c), and embedded declarative clauses (d).

(a) [wh-relative]

Kakie student ponyali urok?

Which.3PL student.3PL.NOM understand.PERF.3PL. lesson.ACC

“Which students understood the lesson?” Russian

 

 

(b) [Relative]

Studentki, kotorie ponyali urok.

Student.3PLF.NOM who3PL understand.PERF.3PL lesson.ACC

“The students understood the lesson.” Russian

 

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(c) [Cleft]

Eto student kotoriy ponyal urok.It student.3SM.NOM who3SM understand.PERF.3SM lesson.ACC

“It is the student who understood the lesson.”

 

 

(d) [Embedded declarative clause]

 

On hochet shto-bi studenti ponyali urok.

He.3SM wish.IMPERF.NOM.3SGM that student.3PL understand.IMPERF.NOM lesson.ACC

‘He wishes that the students understand the lesson.’

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Assuming that Russian SVA associates with C predicts that it encodes an agreement relation with the constituent.

I suppose that this can explain that Russian SVA differs depending on the position of subject.

Sentences can have partial and full agreement what shows that binding-theoretic effects associated with D-agreement.

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CONCLUSION

I have argued that there are differences between SVA in English and Russian.

These languages have some similarities in SVA and have a lot of differences and we should remember that English is fixed WO language and Russian is free WO language.

I gave different examples of differences and in both languages and showed that these languages have two different categories of SVA.

In English we see the distribution on T, but in Russian - the distribution on C, English is more sensitive to tense, Russian is more sensitive to clause-typing. 26

REFERENCES Amy Einsohn “The copy editor’s Handbook. A guide for book Publishing and

Corporate Communications” Andra. B. Geffner, Former Dean, Taylor Business “American Business English”,

Institute New York 16 Chapter. Subject-Verb Agreement (The Noun, The Possessive, The Verb) Déchaine, Rose-Marie, and Martina Wiltschko. 2002. Decomposing Pronouns.

Linguistic Inquiry 33:409-442. Mauren Lindner, “English Language and Composition”, Subject-Verb

Agreement Nancy Lawrence, “ GED Basics”, 3-rd edition, Chapter 3: Subject-Verb

Agreement, p.40 Paul Cubberly , “Russian. A linguistic Introduction”. Sarah G. Thomason , “Language Contact”. Steven Franks, “Agreement”, Cambridge Text Book in Linguistics, “Parameters

of Slavic Morphosyntax”, Oxford Studies in comparative syntax. Timothy Shopen, “Languages and their Status”, Chapter: The structure of

Russian. p 91-123

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