Extended nominal groups & subject-verb agreement

When the subject of a sentence is an extended nominal group, it is sometimes confusing to work out which word the verb should agree with because the subject and its verb are a long distance apart.

In the example above, the subject of the sentence is an extended nominal group: 'The establishment of the agricultural projects'. 'Establishment' is the head noun of this group; it is this word (the head noun) that the verb must agree with. Because in this case the head noun is singular, the verb must also be in its singular form.

The other words in the nominal group add more information to the head noun. Their number (singular/plural) does not impact upon the form the verb takes. This is one area where ungrammatical sentences are likely to occur in native speakers' writing because writers sometimes accidentally make the verb agree with the wrong noun; for example, in the sentence above writers may incorrectly make the verb 'was' agree with the plural noun 'projects'.

Here are some more examples:

For more information on identifying the head noun of a nominal group, click here.