Melanie  +  40545 Tue, 03 Aug 04 08:07 AM He She It uses an s eg. he means, she means, It means and the rest uses "mean" (I, You etc...) so if we use "The" what form do we use? Thanks in Advance : ) Melanie Joined on Sat, May 22 2004 New Member 27

	Melanie  +  40551 Tue, 03 Aug 04 09:03 AM I don't mean the mean. that was just an example. i want to know if i start a sentence with "THE girls mean(or what ever word)" should i use an s after that word(mean/verb) or not. i'm not too good in explaining what i want to know, sorry. Melanie Verbs

	Donald  +  40578 Tue, 03 Aug 04 12:58 PM I will still use -s after third person singular.... In fact .....I can hardly remember situations of this kind ... Donald

	miriam  +  40620 Tue, 03 Aug 04 04:07 PM Hi, Melanie You posted: "i want to know if i start a sentence with "THE girls mean(or what ever word)" should i use an s after that word(mean/verb) or not." "The" is an article in English, and it's an "invariable" word: you will use "the" with singular and plural nouns, and with feminine and masculine nouns, and also with mass and count nouns. The article does not determine subject-verb agreement. In the sentence "The girls mean", "the girls" is the subject, and the most important word in the subject is the noun "girls". So, "girls" is what has to agree with the verb. In order to see if you have to add an "s" to a verb in the simple present, you only need to find out which personal pronoun can replace "girls" (or "the girls"). The right pronoun is "they", so the form of the verb corresponding to "they" is used. You said verbs take an "s" only for "he", "she" and "it"... so here you don't use the "s". "THe girls mean..." is correct. If you said "the girl" (only one girl), the pronoun for that girl would be "she", so you wou;d need to add an "s" to the verb: "The girl means..." I hope this helps Miriam miriam Joined on Mon, May 10 2004 Argentina Regular Member 821 "Wise men talk because they have something to say; fools, because they have to say something." Plato Articles, Simple Present, Verbs, Plurals, Nouns, Pronouns