Grammatical agreement is the concept of ensuring that all the elements within a sentence are in harmony. It means that the nouns, verbs, adjectives, and pronouns in a sentence must agree in gender, number, and person.
Gender agreement refers to whether a word is masculine, feminine, or neuter. In languages that have gendered nouns, it is important to ensure that other elements in the sentence also match the gender of the noun. For example, in French, the noun “chat” (cat) is masculine, so the appropriate article, adjective, and pronoun must also be masculine. This reflects the need for grammatical agreement in gender when creating coherent and accurate sentences.
Number agreement refers to whether words are singular or plural. This is particularly important in English, where the verb must agree with the subject in terms of number. For example, if the subject of the sentence is “the dog,” then the verb form must be singular (e.g. “the dog runs”). If the subject is “the dogs,” then the verb form must be plural (e.g. “the dogs run”).
Person agreement refers to the relationship between the subject and object in a sentence. It is particularly important in languages that have inflectional endings on verbs to denote the person (e.g. “I run,” “you run,” “he/she/it runs,” “we run,” “you all run,” “they run”). If the subject is first person (I, we), then the verb must be in the first person form.
In conclusion, grammatical agreement ensures that the elements within a sentence are harmonious. It includes gender, number, and person agreement and is a crucial aspect of writing accurate and coherent sentences. As a copy editor, it is important to check for grammatical agreement to avoid any errors and to ensure that the intended meaning of the sentence is conveyed correctly.