Concordância verbal: casos difíceis
Concordância verbal: casos difíceis means “Tricky subject-verb agreement: impersonal haver and fazer stay singular; "a maioria de" allows both.”. When haver means "there is/are", it is impersonal and has no subject, so it stays in the third-person singular no matter how many things follow: Havia muitos livros na estante, never haviam. Formation: haver/fazer impessoais → sempre 3ª sing. · a maioria de/metade de + plural → sing. ou pl. · 50% dos N → concorda com N · um dos que → pl.
Tricky subject-verb agreement: impersonal haver and fazer stay singular; "a maioria de" allows both.
B2Formation
haver/fazer impessoais → sempre 3ª sing. · a maioria de/metade de + plural → sing. ou pl. · 50% dos N → concorda com N · um dos que → pl.
Explanation
When haver means "there is/are", it is impersonal and has no subject, so it stays in the third-person singular no matter how many things follow: Havia muitos livros na estante, never haviam. The same holds for fazer marking elapsed time: Faz dois anos que moro aqui, never fazem — this is exactly the written counterpart of the spoken tem in ptg004. Spanish behaves identically here (había muchos libros, hace dos años), so this is a rare case of direct transfer for Spanish speakers. Three other patterns are genuinely flexible: with a maioria dos alunos or a metade dos alunos the verb may be singular (passou, agreeing with maioria) or plural (passaram, agreeing with alunos), both correct; a percentage agrees with the noun after it (50% dos votos foram anulados, but 50% da população saiu); and um dos que strongly prefers the plural, since the relative refers to the group (É um dos que mais trabalham). Finally, the collective a gente always takes a singular verb even though it means "we" (see ptg031).
Examples
Note
Making haver or fazer plural (haviam livros, fazem dois anos) is one of the most common written errors even for natives — but it stays singular. Note that when haver is an auxiliary, not existential, it does agree normally.
FAQ
Concordância verbal: casos difíceis — what does it mean and how is it used?
Tricky subject-verb agreement: impersonal haver and fazer stay singular; "a maioria de" allows both.. When haver means "there is/are", it is impersonal and has no subject, so it stays in the third-person singular no matter how many things follow: Havia muitos livros na estante, never haviam. The same holds for fazer marking elapsed time: Faz dois anos que moro aqui, never fazem — this is exactly the written counterpart of the spoken tem in ptg004. Spanish behaves identically here (había muchos libros, hace dos años), so this is a rare case of direct transfer for Spanish speakers. Three other patterns are genuinely flexible: with a maioria dos alunos or a metade dos alunos the verb may be singular (passou, agreeing with maioria) or plural (passaram, agreeing with alunos), both correct; a percentage agrees with the noun after it (50% dos votos foram anulados, but 50% da população saiu); and um dos que strongly prefers the plural, since the relative refers to the group (É um dos que mais trabalham). Finally, the collective a gente always takes a singular verb even though it means "we" (see ptg031).
Concordância verbal: casos difíceis — how do you form it?
haver/fazer impessoais → sempre 3ª sing. · a maioria de/metade de + plural → sing. ou pl. · 50% dos N → concorda com N · um dos que → pl.
Concordância verbal: casos difíceis — any usage notes?
Making haver or fazer plural (haviam livros, fazem dois anos) is one of the most common written errors even for natives — but it stays singular. Note that when haver is an auxiliary, not existential, it does agree normally.