Agreement - Complementary Elements in Sentences

Many of the rules of English grammar and sentence structure are based on one basic concept:

Complementary elements in sentences must agree.

Complementary elements "go together."  Parts of a sentence need to be compatible (complementary) in order to create meaning. 

There are seven sets of elements that must agree, whenever they occur in a sentence, in order for the sentence to make sense:

  1. nouns and their verbs
  2. nouns and their pronouns
  3. pronouns and pronouns
  4. nouns and adjectives
  5. verbs and verbs
  6. verbs and adverbs
  7. words or phrases in a series (parallelism)

  

 

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