SAT® · Reading and Writing: Form, Structure, and Sense — Agreement
Indefinite Pronouns as Subjects
Indefinite pronouns like each, everyone, and neither act as singular subjects no matter what plural noun sits between them and the verb. Some pronouns, like none, some, and all, instead borrow their number from the noun that follows.
The test loves to bury the real subject under a pile of other nouns. Words like everyone, everybody, everything, someone, anybody, nothing, each, either, and neither are called indefinite pronouns, and most of them are grammatically singular even though they can mean a whole group. Everyone sounds like a crowd, but grammatically it's one unit making one choice, so it gets 'everyone is' not 'everyone are'. Each, either, and neither carry that same singular identity even when they're followed by 'of' plus a plural noun. That 'of the volunteers' or 'of the two proposals' is just a prepositional phrase describing which group you're picking from. It never supplies the subject, so it can never hand its plural number to the verb.
Try 'Each of the volunteers were assigned a different route.' Cross out 'of the volunteers' and you're left with 'Each were assigned', which sounds wrong because it is. 'Each' needs 'was'. Same move with 'Neither of the two proposals address the funding gap': strip the phrase, hear 'Neither address', and fix it to 'Neither addresses'. The trap works because your ear hears the nearby plural noun and wants to match it, but the verb answers only to the pronoun itself.
None breaks the pattern. It can mean 'not one' (singular) or 'not any' (plural), so unlike 'no one', which is always singular, 'none' can take either verb depending on meaning and on the noun it refers to. Some, all, most, any, and a lot work the same flexible way: look at the noun in the phrase that follows. 'Some of the cake is gone' stays singular because cake is singular, while 'Some of the cookies are gone' goes plural because cookies is plural.
Key terms
- Indefinite pronoun
- A pronoun like each, everyone, or none that stands for a person or thing not specifically named.
- Prepositional phrase
- A phrase starting with a word like 'of' or 'in' that describes a noun but cannot act as the sentence's subject.
- Subject-verb agreement
- The rule that a verb must match its subject in number, singular with singular and plural with plural.
- Variable-number pronoun
- A pronoun such as none, some, all, or most whose singular or plural status depends on the noun it refers to.
Watch it explained
- How it worksHow do the pronouns ending in -one, -body, and -thing all lock a verb into the singular?
- Worked exampleWalk me through the verb in 'Each of the volunteers were assigned a different route'.
- Worked exampleWalk me through deciding the verb for 'Neither of the two proposals address the funding gap'.
- Common mistakeWhy doesn't 'none' always take a singular verb the way 'no one' reliably does?
- Going furtherWhat happens with 'some', 'all', and 'most', where the phrase after them decides the number?
Check yourself
End of topic.