Vocabulary: concord: my favourite fruit is/ are.... An
explanation and advice on teaching subject - verb agreement. Is
there a rule to apply to the sentences I mentioned above? Could
you help with my questions? Roy, your fascinating question
concerns what is called, technically, concord, or, more
generally, agreement. That is, the agreement of subject and
verb. So, to take your example (but avoiding fruit for the
moment): My favourite animal is the elephant. Here we have
concord between the (singular, countable) subject and the verb.
We also have agreement between the singular subject and the
complement (the elephant). We could equally well say: My
favourite animals are elephants. Again concord rules. In the
occasional case where the subject is singular and the complement
is plural, the verb agrees with the subject, not the complement.
So: My favourite meal is baked beans. Not *My favourite meal are
baked beans. (The asterisk is the device traditionally used to
show a grammatically unacceptable example). This