Subject Verb Agreement Quotes

(Since he also asked, famously, “Is our children learning?” one expected that his first official act as president would be to cancel the agreement between subjects and verbs.)

Nick Ellis (2002) explains, the emphasis is on the frequency with which learners encounter specific linguistic features in the input and the frequency with which language features occur together. According to this view, learners develop a stronger and stronger network of associations or connections between these features as well as between language features and the contexts in which they occur. Eventually, the presence of one situational or linguistic feature will activate the other(s) in the learner’s mind. For example, learners might get subject–verb agreement correct, not because they know a rule but because they have heard examples such as ‘I say’ and ‘he says’ so often that each subject pronoun activates the correct verb form.