When one word changes form to match another — a verb matching its subject, an adjective matching its noun.
Also called: concord.
In precise terms
A systematic covariance in form between two elements, where features such as person, number, gender or noun class on one element are reflected on another.
An example
Las casas blancas son grandes.
The white houses are big.
What is going on here
Feminine plural is marked four times: on the determiner 'las', the noun 'casas', the adjective 'blancas', and — as plural — on the verb 'son' and adjective 'grandes'. The information is redundant, and that redundancy is what makes speech robust against noise.
Why this matters when you are learning a language
Agreement errors are the most audible kind of grammatical mistake, because the redundancy means a single wrong ending clashes with several correct ones.
Across languages
Bantu languages agree across an extensive noun-class system, so a single sentence can carry the same class marker on five words. Mandarin has essentially no agreement. English has almost none beyond the third-person singular '-s'.
Related terms
- Grammatical genderIntermediate — A system sorting nouns into classes that other words must agree with.
- AdjectiveBeginner — A word that describes a noun — its size, colour, quality or state.
- SubjectBeginner — The part of a clause that the verb agrees with — usually who or what performs the action.
- VerbBeginner — A word for an action, event or state — what is happening.
- PolysynthesisAdvanced — A label for language patterns in which one word—often a verb—can contain many meaningful and grammatical parts.
Where to go next
- Language guides — See grammatical and lexical categories used in context.
- Terminology quiz — Test the terms on this page.