In some cases, two nouns or noun phrases forming a subject of a verb usually precipitate confusion especially for English language learners.
Consider:
"The groom, with his friends has gotten ready to take group photography".
The sentence above has two subjects which are "the groom" and "his friends" joined by preposition with. It only introduced fake subject. Ordinarily, the predicate is supposed to be "have gotten" instead of "has gotten".
Regarding the simple rule to be followed in making verb choice, "his friends" is a fake subject which must be neglected, whilst "the groom" should be chosen as the actual subject and "the groom" is singular.
Let us put the sentence in this way:
"The groom has gotten ready to take group photography with his friends".
Base on that, choosing of singular anonymous verb "has" is justified.
Consider:
The groom, with his friends have gotten ready to take group photography". × Wrong.
The groom, with his friends has gotten ready to take group photography". √ Correct.
'With' is not the only fake subject indicator, but also "along with", "together with", "as well as", "in addition to", "besides" and so on. When any of the above mentioned conjunctions joins two subjects together, the first subject before the conjunction should be considered as the one needed while the other subject that appears after the conjunction must be ignored completely.
Therefore, if the first subject is singular, automatically, singular verb should be chosen and if the first subject is plural, then verb should also be plural.
Also consider:
1. Janet together with her class mates is attending Victor's birthday party tomorrow. √ Correct
Janet together with her class mates are attending Victor's birthday party tomorrow. × Wrong
2. The chairman as well as his wife receives the company award of honour. √ Right
The chairman as well as his wife receive the company award of honour. × Wrong
Olufajo Olulekan
Hello Reader, thanks for your visitation. I am Olufajo Olulekan, a blogger by passion, inspiring in helping people online with useful information. I usually blog on another different platform but create this blog to make people knowledgeable about English Language, Literature in English, and Literary Texts Summary and Analysis