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    Sharpen Your Verbal Skills
    Sharpen Your Verbal Skills
    Sharpen Your Verbal Skills
    Ebook104 pages2 hours

    Sharpen Your Verbal Skills

    By Pearl U. Anuku

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    About this ebook

    The English language can often be confusing, especially when it comes to subject-verb agreement. In Sharpen Your Verbal Skills, author Pearl U. Anuku provides a guide on learning the ins and outs of subject-verb agreement in order to improve ones ability to speak the English language well.



    A reference guide with extensive examples and exercises, Sharpen Your Verbal Skills takes the mystery out of subject-verb agreementthe act of matching a singular subject with a singular verb or pairing a plural subject with a plural verb. This primer:



    provides a definition of terms;
    describes the subject-verb agreement rule;
    discusses conjugation of verbs;
    shows examples of defective sentences and their correct forms; and
    shares additional facts on subject-verb agreement.

    Presenting a step-by-step method for matching a subject with its appropriate verb, Sharpen Your Verbal Skills includes a host of information necessary to improve grammar and develop a good command of the English language.

    LanguageEnglish
    PublisheriUniverse
    Release dateJun 21, 2013
    ISBN9781475984439
    Sharpen Your Verbal Skills
    Author

    Pearl U. Anuku

    Pearl U. Anuku, a Nigerian native, graduated from Ambrose Alli University, Ekpoma with a degree in English. She has worked as an administrative officer in the Delta State Civil Service for ten years. Pearl currently lives in Canada with her family. This is her debut book.

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      Book preview

      Sharpen Your Verbal Skills - Pearl U. Anuku

      Copyright © 2013 Pearl U. Anuku.

      All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced by any means, graphic, electronic, or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, taping or by any information storage retrieval system without the written permission of the publisher except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews.

      iUniverse books may be ordered through booksellers or by contacting:

      iUniverse

      1663 Liberty Drive

      Bloomington, IN 47403

      www.iuniverse.com

      1-800-Authors (1-800-288-4677)

      ISBN: 978-1-4759-8442-2 (sc)

      ISBN: 978-1-4759-8443-9 (ebk)

      Library of Congress Control Number: 2013907788

      iUniverse rev. date: 06/04/2013

      CONTENTS

      Preface

      Acknowledgements

      Chapter 1 Definition of terms

      Chapter 2 Subject-verb agreement rule

      Chapter 3 Conjugation of verbs

      Chapter 4 Defective sentences and their correct forms (1)

      Chapter 5 Defective sentences and their correct forms (2)

      Chapter 6 Additional facts on subject-verb agreement

      References

      This book is dedicated to my late parents, Mr. Martin Ifeonukwu Etuokwu and Mrs. Roseline Uche Etuokwu, for being there for me during their lifetime.

      Talent alone cannot make a writer. There must be a man behind the book; a personality which, by birth and quality, is pledged to the doctrines there set forth, and which exists to see and state things so, and not otherwise.

      —Ralph Waldo Emerson

      Preface

      Most people find it difficult to express themselves in English, especially in the area of subject-verb agreement. This is because they do not know the fundamentals of this topic; that is, matching a singular subject with a singular verb and a plural subject with a plural verb. It is against this backdrop that Sharpen Your Verbal Skills is specifically designed.

      Indeed, this book will be of immense benefit to pupils in primary schools, students in secondary and higher education, and the general public.

      Acknowledgements

      I appreciate my husband, Walter Anuku, and our children Samuel, Israel, and Jesse for their unreserved love and understanding.

      Also, worthy of note is the grace of God, which saw me through the writing process.

      List of abbreviations and signs used

      PP—prepositional phrase

      PS—plural subject

      PV—plural verb

      SS—singular subject

      SS1—singular subject (first)

      SS2—singular subject (second)

      SS3—singular subject (third)

      SV—singular verb

      =—equal to

      +—plus

      Chapter 1

      Definition of terms

      2816.png Sentence

      2818.png Verb

      2820.png Subject

      Sentence

      A set of words expressing a statement, a question, or an order, usually containing a subject and a verb (Oxford Advanced Learner’s Dictionary, 2005: 1331).

      Verb

      A word used to indicate the occurrence of or performance of an action (The New Shorter Oxford English Dictionary, 1993: 3562).

      Subject

      A word or phrase in a sentence indicating who or what performs the action of a verb (Oxford Canadian Dictionary of Current English, 2005: 843).

      From the above definitions, it is obvious that a sentence is complete only when there is a combination of a subject and a verb. While the verb expresses the action, the subject does the action. Here are some examples:

      Sentence 1: A chorister sings.

      1.jpg

      Sentence 2: The girl is wild.

      2.jpg
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