83.Agreement. This is the term commonly used to cover the relationship between verbs, nouns, pronouns (i.e. general noun substitutes like “he”, “she” etc.) and adjectives. It means little or nothing in modern English; but it is a most important principle in languages like Arabic, which differentiate rigorously for number, gender and case. With one most striking exception, the Arabic scheme of agreement is in normal practice reasonably logical (always bearing in mind the important notion of the precedent Third-Person singular verb in a Verbal Sentence (para. 77)): where rational beings, or near-rational, or supposedly rational beings (i.e. humans and the higher animals) are concerned, agreement is virtually complete, number agreeing with number and gender with gender (case always agrees). But practically all non-rational and inanimate beings (i.e. the lower animals and “things”) are generally regarded as grammatically feminine singular when they occur in the plural, irrespective of the conventional gender in the singular and Dual. Thus “a book”, kitāb, being masculine, is treated as a singular or dual male in respect of verb, pronoun and adjective; but “books”, kutub (Broken Plural of new pattern!), are referred to pronominally not as “they” (m.p.)but as “she” (f.s.), and the verb and adjective accompanying them are accordingly f.s. The Dual, which has yet to be discussed outside of verbs, has virtually complete agreement.

84.Gender of the precedent Third-Person singular verb. In a Verbal Sentence the precedent verb is not only 3 s., but commonly 3 masculine singular.