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What's the best way to find the subject in a sentence? How do you define a subject? I am especially curious about such cases, in which the subject seems to be represented by more than one word:

The majority of people didn't mind the new policy.

A great number of students went on strike yesterday.

Addition:

and such cases where the passive voice is used:

The man was bit by a dog.

Children were frightened by the wolf.

Also, please, consider such cases with ergative verbs:

I broke my chair.

The chair broke.

The chair was broken by me.

brilliant
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    Are you looking for how to find the simple subject or the complete subject? (the difference being whether you want the modifiers or not) – Dusty Dec 08 '10 at 22:54
  • What is a complete subject? Isn't it like a modifier is always separate from that entity that it modifies? As far as I understand, modifiers are words or phrases that modify (i.e. change the meaning of) nouns, pronouns and verbs. Thus, if a noun that has a modifier in a sentence also happens to be a subject of that sentence, then that modifier modifies a subject of that sentence, which is a noun. If so, how can that modifier be a part of a subject? – brilliant Dec 08 '10 at 23:38
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    @brilliant - you've actually just self-illustrated the difference between the simple subject and the complete one. What you're calling the subject is the 'simple subject'. That is the specific noun/pronoun. The 'complete subject' is just the simple subject with its modifiers. In your first example 'majority' is the simple subject, while 'the majority of people' is the complete subject. Based on your question though, you've answered mine, which is that you're looking for the simple subject. – Dusty Dec 09 '10 at 15:00
  • @Dusty: "The 'complete subject' is just the simple subject with its modifiers" - What about such cases as "The young ran before us"? Is "The young" a simple or a complete subject? – brilliant Dec 09 '10 at 15:18
  • @brilliant - "The young" is the complete subject. "young" would be the simple subject. – Dusty Dec 09 '10 at 15:27
  • @Dusty: Thanks, it seems that now I can see the difference between a "simple subject" and a "complete subject", but, ironically, I still don't have a precise definition of the very "subject" itself! How do you define a subject? – brilliant Dec 09 '10 at 15:33
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    In general, it's the 'thing' (person, object, whatever) that is doing or being in the sentence. So, if you can find the verb, find who or what is 'verbing'. For instance 'ran' is the verb, so, 'who/what ran?' 'the young'. It can work for some passive voice sentences like 'He was trampled by a car'. So, 'trampled' is the verb, so 'Who/what tramped?' 'the car'. Note that some sentences use implied or missing subjects. These include imperative sentences which use the implied 'you' such as "Go home" and some passive voice sentences like 'Mistakes were made' 'Who/what made?' it's not said.. – Dusty Dec 09 '10 at 15:43
  • Dusty, I am a little bit confused by how you ask questions. For example, for the sentence 'Mistakes were made' I would rather ask 'Who/what were made?' instead of 'Who/what made?' - just like in the sentence 'Mistakes were awful' I would ask 'Who/what were awful?' – brilliant Dec 09 '10 at 15:57
  • Also, do you really mean to say that in the sentence 'He was trampled by a car' the 'car' is the subject? – brilliant Dec 09 '10 at 16:09
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    Eep. my apologies. I started thinking about agent, and not the subject. In the passive voice, the subject is the receiver of the action, so 'he' was the subject in 'he was trampled' – Dusty Dec 09 '10 at 16:19
  • So, do you think we could define a subject as "either the performer of an action or its receiver, whichever comes first in the sentence"? Both in active and passive voice constructions subject precedes the action: 'Ann broke the chair' ("Ann" is the subject), 'The chair was broken by Ann' ("The chair" is the subject). – brilliant Dec 10 '10 at 04:55
  • @Dusty: "Are you looking for how to find the simple subject or the complete subject? (the difference being whether you want the modifiers or not)" - Now I think I understand what "complete subject" and ""simple subject" are. Thanks for introducing these terms to me. I want simple subjects. So, in my first two examples: "The majority of students..." and "A great number of students..." - where are the simple objects there? – brilliant Dec 11 '10 at 09:02
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    @brilliant: I would hesitate to say that the order in the sentence will ALWAYS determine which is the subject, but it is the usual form. In the examples you listed 'majority' and 'number' are the simple subjects. – Dusty Dec 11 '10 at 14:18
  • Dusty, as far as I understand, you consider "of students" to be a modifier, right? I don't argue, but I just don't understand, Why "the majority of" and "the number of" can't be considered as modifiers in these cases? – brilliant Dec 11 '10 at 14:57

6 Answers6

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Subjects are noun phrases, and usually have more than one word in them, but they can be just one word, if there are no modifiers. Subject is a grammatical concept restricted to languages with nominative-accusative systems, like most Indo-European languages. Languages like Basque, Georgian, Quiché, or Pitjantjatjara, which have absolutive-ergative systems, do not support a meaningful concept of Subject.

Virtually all tensed English clauses (including all simple sentences), require a Subject constituent.
Besides its position before the verb phrase, the grammatical properties of a Subject include:

  • number agreement with the verb phrase
    The ladies are arriving ~ The lady is arriving
  • inversion with auxiliary in questions
    The old man in the trenchcoat is coming => Is the old man in the trenchcoat coming?
  • pronominalization in tag questions
    Those guys are the ones, aren't they?
  • upstairs control of A-Equi deletion, plus downstairs deletion by Equi
    Bill wanted to see the painting = Bill wanted (for Bill) to see the painting.
  • promotion by Subject-Raising (often obligatory)
    *For there to be beer in the fridge tends => There tends to be beer in the fridge.
  • movement and optional deletion by Passive
    Acme Construction erected this building in 1936 => This building was erected in 1936.
  • contraction with auxiliary (especially pronouns)
    The old woman has/is gone now => The old woman's gone now

In addition, there are semantic criteria governed by predicates. Most predicates will only accept certain types of noun phrase as subjects, and lots of tests can be fashioned with different verbs.

John Lawler
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  • +1 Helpful. You could add uniqueness there too. – Araucaria - Him Nov 12 '15 at 16:06
  • I'm not sure what you mean by "uniqueness" here. You mean "there is one and only one subject"? That depends on how you define subject, and whether you claim there's always one. What's the subject in It's raining, for instance? Some would say there isn't one, and some would say the dummy. – John Lawler Nov 12 '15 at 16:37
  • Can you point me to a source that can help me better understand "equi raising?" You mentioned this in several posts and linked to one of your materials, but I couldn't understand it. – michael_timofeev Nov 13 '15 at 02:04
  • Equi and Raising are two different rules that apply (mostly) to infinitives. They basically distinguish agentive predicates (Equi) from aspectual predicates (Raising). Often one can't tell which is which, and tests are necessary. – John Lawler Nov 13 '15 at 02:39
  • @michael_timofeev I've added a link to Equi vs Raising to the answer. – John Lawler Jul 10 '21 at 17:46
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This is actually a difficult question, and to some degree the answer depends on the theoretical framework you are using. As Dusty says, whether you consider the bare N or the whole NP (i.e. with or without complements and modifiers) as the subject is a matter of choice, and once you have passives then the syntactic subject may not be the semantic subject. In the 80's some grammarians decided that 'subject' wasn't a useful concept, and generalised it to the concept of a syntactic pivot.

The point of which is not (just ;-)) to air my knowledge, but to point out that finding a definition which will cope with every edge case is hard.

Colin Fine
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  • Thank you Colin for this link and for your answer. Syntactic pivot is definitely something new to me, I've never heard about it, but it seems that the concept of syntactic pivot is exactly what I am trying to arrive at here. It looks to be like this concept embraces and reconciles all those contradictory cases like passive-voice constructions and others. – brilliant Dec 10 '10 at 01:01
  • Collin, do you think we could define a subject as "either the performer of an action or its receiver, whichever comes first in a sentence or in a clause"? As far as I can see, both in active and passive voice constructions subject precedes the action: 'Ann broke the chair' ("Ann" is the subject), 'The chair was broken by Ann' ("The chair" is the subject). (I just asked Dusty the same question here) – brilliant Dec 10 '10 at 04:59
  • Any definition depending on order certainly doesn't work in general. In "The person that I saw", whether you consider the whole sentence, or just the relative clause "that I saw", the subject "I" follows its object. – Colin Fine Dec 10 '10 at 11:24
  • "...the relative clause "that I saw", the subject "I" follows its object" - Why? As far as I understand, here the relative clause "I saw" doesn't have any objects at all. Here we only have the word "I", which is the object of this relative clause, and the verb "saw", which is the verb-only predicate that is expressing the action performed by the subject "I". And the main clause here not only lacks any objects, but also has no predicate - there is no word expressing any action that the "person" would perform. So, the whole sentence 'The person that I saw' doesn't contain any objects at all. – brilliant Dec 10 '10 at 12:03
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    I was wrong in saying "the whole sentence": it isn't a sentence, and if it is made into one, the whole thing I quoted will be the subject (back to your original question). But in the relative clause itself, "saw" is the verb, "I" is the subject and "that" is the only thing which can plausibly be called the object, and it precedes the subject. – Colin Fine Dec 10 '10 at 15:47
  • (1) @Colin Fine: "...it isn't a sentence, and if it is made into one, the whole thing I quoted will be the subject..." - I don't quite understand what you are saying here. What do you mean by "made into one"? Can you, please, give an example? "...and "that" is the only thing which can plausibly be called the object..." - Isn't the word "that" in this case is just a relative pronoun that merely marks the beginning of a clause, just like what conjunctions do? Yes it does make a reference to the word "person" in the main clause, but, as far as I can see, it is still not an object. – brilliant Dec 10 '10 at 18:08
  • (2) Here I have some reasons for that: 1) First of all, as a marker of a coming relative clause, a relative pronoun will not fulfill its role if nothing follows right after it, and, therefore, the sentence will be incomplete and the meaning will not be clear: such sentence as “The person that.” sounds incomplete and makes no sense, while “I did that.” sounds complete and makes sense (in the latter example the word “that” is an object, while “that” in the former a relative pronoun). 2) Secondly, unlike an object, a relative pronoun can often easily be replaced with the word “which” without – brilliant Dec 10 '10 at 18:09
  • (3) any loss of meaning: “The thing, which I saw, was good.” makes as much sense as “The thing that I saw was good.” However, the same can’t be done with an object “I saw that yesterday.” makes sense, but “I saw which yesterday.” doesn’t make any sense. 3) Thirdly, a relative pronoun can be simply omitted from a sentence, and the meaning will still remain intact: “The person (that) I saw at the café was here too.” But omitting an object often damages the meaning: “Jack also heard exactly (that)!” 4) Lastly, a relative pronoun, even though it makes a reference, it can only refer to – brilliant Dec 10 '10 at 18:10
  • (4) something existing in the main clause of the same sentence. In other words, the scale of reference that is being made by a relative pronoun is limited to only one sentence. But an object, if it makes a reference to something (usually in such cases the object is a pronoun) it can refer to something in the previous sentence or even earlier: “Finally Jack admitted he had heard a scary laughter. Things were really getting tough now. On the next day I also heard that.” What do you think about all of this? – brilliant Dec 12 '10 at 05:00
  • I came up with the relative clause as a quite counter-example. It's not worth arguing about the details, when "'Come in' said Mr Smith" is a much simpler and less controversial example of a subject succeeding the verb. – Colin Fine Dec 13 '10 at 14:44
  • You are right Colin. Your example shows that my definition based on the word order was flawed. – brilliant Dec 21 '10 at 01:41
  • @brilliant I love your question, but selecting that answer is really disapointing - although CF's comment to you above is good. But a good comment doesn't make an answer good (and a good answer doesn't make a comment good). Maybe don't select an answer when you don't have good ones. But, now you have a better answer by John Lawler, you could select that one :) – Araucaria - Him May 19 '17 at 23:12
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A simplistic explanation: the subject is the noun acting in a sentence, the predicate is the action/verb and the object being acted upon.

For example:

[Subject] [ Predicate ]

[Subject] [[Verb] [Object]]

[The majority of people] [[didn't mind] [the new policy]]

If you want to dig deeper, the rules of sentence construction are more complicated with many variations and caveats.

I like marenostrum's practical suggestion of asking a who or what question, but it can be misinterpreted:

What was was it that people didn't mind?

The new policy.

What did a great number of students do yesterday?

They went on strike.

CJM
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  • Please see Edit 1 in marenostrum's answer. – marenostrum Dec 09 '10 at 14:11
  • @CJM: "the subject is the noun acting in a sentence, the predicate is the action/verb and the object being acted upon" - So, what about passive-voice cases: "The tree has been cut down by the woodcutter"? According to your definition "woodcutter" must be the subject because "woodcutter" is the acting noun in the sentence, and the "tree" then must be the object as it is the tree that is being acted upon. But shouldn't it actually be the other way around? – brilliant Dec 09 '10 at 15:02
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    @brilliant: You failed to quote the 'A simplistic explanation:' preface and the 'If you want to dig deeper, the rules of sentence construction are more complicated with many variations and caveats.' line that I followed with. I look forward for your complete and all-encompassing answer to the OP. – CJM Dec 09 '10 at 15:37
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    @CJM: Passive-voice usage, I think, is so ubiquitous that it should also somehow fit into the simplistic explanation. However, I admit that you had the full right to attach your own meaning to "simplistic explanation". By the way, I AM the OP :) – brilliant Dec 09 '10 at 15:46
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    @Brilliant: "I AM the OP" - in that case, I'll probably let you off. – CJM Dec 09 '10 at 17:20
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A practical way might be asking the sentence the question who. or what. (See RegDwight's comment, and "Edit 1" below) The answer is the subject.

With your examples:

The majority of people didn't mind the new policy.

Who didn't mind the new policy?

the majority of people

A great number of students went on strike yesterday.

Who did go on strike yesterday?

a great number of students

Edit 1: I am omitting the question what. In fact I was not fine with it while writing it. I wrote it in case of the subject be neuter but that was a mistake. So we should ask who not taking into account the answer may be a "it". Such as: The clever white mouse ate the cheese. Who did eat the cheese? The clever white mouse. Obviosly, the question what leads us to the object if asked against the subject: What did the white clever mouse eat? The cheese.

marenostrum
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  • I'll play the devil's advocate and ask: 1) The majority of people didn't mind what? 2) A great number of students went on what yesterday? Or even, 3) What did a great number of students do yesterday? So the subject is: 1) the new policy, 2) strike, 3) went on strike. (^_^) – RegDwigнt Dec 09 '10 at 11:03
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    Playing "devils advocate" is the best and @ReDdwigth's objection is totally just. However, I believe that the technique is still valid. I should have expressed it in a more refined way. I'm going to edit my answer. – marenostrum Dec 09 '10 at 12:34
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    My previous objection wasn't really to the word "what" itself. Much rather, we need a way to distinguish the nominative what from a non-nominative what. Note that the same is true for who, what's with whom falling out of use. Observe: "I gonna call Ghostbusters." What is the subject in this sentence here? Let's see: "Who you gonna call?" — "Ghostbusters!" – RegDwigнt Dec 09 '10 at 14:38
  • Thank you Marenostrum, but isn't it that relying exclusively on who-questions can also be somewhat misleading in some cases? For example, "John thinks he is The Man" - Who does he think he is? It seems to me that the answer to this question will be "The Man", but the subject is "John", not "The Man". – brilliant Dec 09 '10 at 14:42
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    @RegDwight and @brilliant : How about adding the rule "ask who against the predicate? Does it work and exclude the wrong answers? – marenostrum Dec 09 '10 at 14:58
  • Yes, I think it would work, but in this case we still need to define a predicate. And "whatever-is-not-a-subject" definition would not work here as we haven't established yet what the subject is. – brilliant Dec 09 '10 at 15:09
  • "The bookshelf stood there." Who stood there? There's no one there! Ack ack ack. – Claudiu Dec 09 '10 at 15:18
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In general, the subject is known as the doer or agent or be-er in an active sentence whereas it can be a recipient or the receiver of action in a passive sentence. Normally subjects come at the beginning of simple sentences or clauses. e.g.

  • The dog bit me. (active)
  • I was bit by the dog. (passive)

In the case above, the dog is the subject of first sentence (in active voice) and I is the subject of second sentence (in passive).

A simple sentence or a clause usually takes the form of subject + predicate. To be clear, the subject is the noun/pronoun/noun phrase that stands before the predicate. (Predicate is the phrase containing verb and object/complement which describes something about the subject.)

RegDwigнt
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jeffery
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  • "To be clear, the subject is the noun/pronoun/noun phrase that stands before the predicate" - I think you should read my polemic with Colin Fine in the comments right below his answer here. There I also asserted that a subject always stands before the predicate, and he "beat" me there with a simple example of a direct speech: '"I don't want to go there" - said Lily'. 'Lily' here is a subject that follows the predicate 'said'. – brilliant Jun 24 '12 at 14:23
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A verb needs a who/what-indication. In statements the who/what-indication stands on the left-hand side of the verb.

rogermue
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