called "native". Thus, from the point of view of the expression of a category either through the actual morphemic composition of a word, or through its being obligatorily referred to another word in a syntagmatic string, the corresponding grammatical forms will be classed into native and junctional. About the person-numerical forms of the finite verb in question we shall say that in the ordinary case of the third person singular present indicative, the person and number of the verb are expressed natively, while in most of the other paradigmatic locations they are expressed junctionally, through the obligatory reference of the verb-form to its subject.
This truth, not incapable of inviting an objection on the part of the learned, noteworthily has been exposed from time immemorial in practical grammar books, where the actual conjugation of the verb is commonly given in the form of pronoun-verb combinations: I read, you read, he reads, we read, you read, they read.
In point of fact, the English finite verb presented without its person-subject is grammatically almost meaningless. The presence of the two you's in practical tables of examples like the one above, in our opinion, is also justified by the inner structure of language. Indeed, since you is part of the person-number system, and not only of the person system, it should be but natural to take it in the two different, though mutually complementing interpretations - one for each of the two series of pronouns in question , ie the singular series and the plural series. In the light of this approach, the archaic form thou plus the verb should be understood as a specific variant of the second person singular with its respective stylistic connotations. p align="justify"> The exposition of the verbal categories of person and number presented here helps conveniently explain some special cases of the subject-verb categorial relations. The bulk of these cases have been treated by traditional grammar in terms of "agreement in sense", or "notional concord". We refer to the grammatical agreement of the verb not with the categorial form of the subject expressed morphemically, but with the actual personal-numerical interpretation of the denoted referent. p align="justify"> Here belong, in the first place, combinations of the finite verb with collective nouns. According as they are meant by the speaker either to reflect the p lural composition of the subject, or, on the contrary, to render its integral, single-unit quality, the verb is used either in the plural, or in the singular. E.g.:
The government were definitely against the bill introduced
by the opposing liberal party. The newly appointed
government has gathered for its first session.
In the second place, we see here predicative constructions whose subject is made imperatively plural by a numeral attribute. Still, the corresponding verb-form is used to treat it both ways: either as an ordinary plural which fulfils its function in immediate keeping with its factual plural referent, or as an integrating name, whose plural grammatical form and constituent composition give only a measure to the subject-matter of denotation. Cf.: p align="justify"> Three years have elapsed since we saw him last.
Three years is a long time to wait. '
In the third place, under the considered heading come constructions whose subject is expressed by a coordinative group of nouns, the verb being given an option of treating it either as a plural or as a singular. E.g.:
My heart and soul belongs to this small nation in its desperate struggle for survival. My emotional self and rational self have been at variance about the attitude adopted by Jane.
The same rule of "agreement in sense" is operative in relative clauses, where the finite verb directly reflects the categories of the nounal antecedent of the clause-introductory relative pronoun-subject. Cf.: p align="justify"> I who am practically unacquainted with the formal theory of games can hardly suggest an alternative solution. - Your words show the courage and the truth that I have always felt was in your heart.
On the face of it, the cited examples might seem to testify to the analysed verbal categories being altogether self-sufficient, capable, as it were, even of "bossing" the subject as to its referential content. However, the inner regularities underlying the outer arrangement of grammatical connections are necessarily of a contrary nature: it is the subject that induces the verb, through its inflexion, however scanty it may be, to help express the substantival meaning not represented in the imm...
