Concord | #1 | #2 | #3 | #4 | #5 | #6 | #7 | #8 |

Search the corpus:

[Concord #1]
FOCUS: Concord between Subject and Verb
Use the corpus to solve the following exercises:

1) Search the corpus for the expressions "he don't" and "he doesn't". How many times does each of them occur?
0, 15
23, 303
26, 226

2) In what kind of context / text is the expression "he don't" used?
formal, film, 19th century literature
speeches, slang, science
informal, film, slang

3) Why do you think "he doesn't" has been chosen more often than "he don't"?
because it is the grammatically correct form
because the grammatically incorrect form is never used informal English
because the grammatically incorrect form is always used in films

4) Browse through the hits of "the government" in the corpus. Does it take singular or plural concord? (Remember that you can sort the search result by "right word"; this makes it easier to browse through the hits.)
singular
both
plural

5) Search for "government has" and "government have" and give the number of occurrences of each.
45, 0
57, 12
59, 14

6) In the first line of the occurrences of "government have" there is an obvious signal in the context that triggers plural concord; what is this signal? (Remember to sort concordance by "keyword".)
they
interests
it

7) This signal indicates that Government in these contexts is looked upon as:
a unit
a body containing different members
a plural unit

8) Which of the following can take plural concord only? ("everyone, "police", "money", "furniture") (Remember that you can sort the search result by "right word"; this makes it easier to browse through the hits.)
money
police and everyone
police


Last updated 4 October 2023, SOE
© 2004, 2005, 2006-2022 ILOS, University of Oslo