Question

I don't understand this sentence. What ____________(this word/ mean)?
Use the verb in the correct form.
A) do this word means
B) does this word mean
C) do this word mean
D) does this word means

Answer 1

Hint: Verbs is an action word. In the above sentence we have to make use of the right form of the verb for the given subject. We have to fill in the blank in a way that we achieve subject verb agreement.

Complete answer:
Subject verb agreement implies that both the subject and verb are consistent with each other and make grammatical sense. For e.g. She stares at the man. This implies that singular subjects have to use singular verbs and plural subjects have to use plural verbs. The verbs in the form ‘ base form of the verb + s’ are singular forms of the verbs. For e.g. writes,dances. The verbs without ‘s’ in their base form are plurals. For e.g. run, dance.

Singular form of ‘do’ is ‘does’ and the plural form is ‘do’. Similarly the singular form of ‘mean’ is means and the plural form is ‘mean’.

Let us analyze the given options:
A) Incorrect answer - The subject of the given sentence is singular. We are talking about the meaning of a specific word, therefore, we cannot use ‘do’, a plural form of the verb. So it is an incorrect answer.
B) Correct answer - The subject is singular so using singular form of the verb ‘do’ i.e. does will be grammatically correct.Also, since there are two verbs in the phrase the first and nearest verb must agree with the condition of ‘ singular subject for singular verb’ and then the other verb has to be in plural form(if the first verb is singular, vice versa). So this option is correct.
C) Incorrect answer - The subject is singular so the first verb cannot be plural. Therefore this option is incorrect.
D) Incorrect answer -This option fulfills the condition that when the subject is singular the first/nearest verb is singular. However the following verb is also given as singular when it should be in plural. Therefore, this option is incorrect.

Thus the correct answer is option ‘B’.

Note: In an interrogative sentence subjects do not necessarily come before the verb. Therefore we should identify clearly by answering the question ‘what is the sentence talking about?’ to identify the subject and place the right form of verb accordingly.