We have seen that sometimes in English the subject comes after the verb. This can occur after question words (Skill 15), after place expressions (Skill 16), after negative expressions (Skill 17), after omitted conditionals (Skill 18), and after some comparisons (Skill 19).
When the subject and verb are inverted, it can be difficult to locate them, and it can therefore be a problem to make them agree.

(*indicates an error)
In the first example it is easy to think that “house” is the subject, because it comes directly in front of the verb “was”. “House” is NOT the subject, however, because it is the object of the preposition “behind”. The subject of the sentence is “bicycles”, and the subject “bicycles” comes after the verb because of the place expression “behind the house”. Because the subject “bicycles” is plural, the verb should be changed to the plural “were”. In the second example the subject “bicycle” comes after the verb “were” because of the place expression “behind the houses”. Because the subject “bicycle” is singular, the verb should be changed to the singular “was”.

(Behind the house) were the bicycles I wanted.
(Behind the houses) was the bicycle I wanted.

Video Pembahasan