The sentence ‘It appears that you are all mistaken’ has caused some confusion, especially regarding the use of the verb ‘appear’ with an ‘s’ at the end. Let’s explore why this happens and when it is grammatically correct to use the third-person singular form.
1. Subject-Verb Agreement in English
In English, verbs are conjugated to match the subject in terms of number and person. For most verbs, the base form is used with plural subjects and first and second-person singular subjects. However, with third-person singular subjects, the verb typically takes an ‘s’ in the present tense.
2. The Verb ‘Appear’ in Context
In the phrase ‘It appears that you are all mistaken’, the subject is actually ‘It’, a third-person singular pronoun. This causes the verb ‘appear’ to take the singular form, making it ‘appears’. It’s important to note that ‘appear’ is treated like a stative verb in this case, which typically does not change its form based on the subject. The singular form ‘appears’ is used due to the third-person subject ‘It’.
3. The Role of ‘It’ as a Subject
‘It’ is often used in impersonal expressions, such as ‘It seems’, ‘It looks’, and ‘It appears’, where ‘it’ doesn’t refer to anything specific. In these cases, the verb following ‘it’ will always be in the third-person singular form. This is because the subject ‘It’ is singular, even though it refers to a situation, condition, or circumstance.
4. Conclusion: Understanding the ‘s’ in ‘Appears’
In summary, the ‘s’ in ‘appears’ is there because of subject-verb agreement. The verb ‘appear’ takes the third-person singular form ‘appears’ when used with the singular subject ‘it’. This rule applies to many impersonal expressions in English, making the construction both grammatically correct and standard in everyday usage.
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