| Subject (grammar) |
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''Mr Bibby danced.'' The subject has the Grammatical Function in a sentence of relating its constituent (a Noun Phrase ) by means of the Verb to any other elements present in the sentence, i.e. Objects , Complements and Adverbials . The subject is a sentence element, and should be distinguished from Parts Of Speech , which classify expressions within elements. Forms of subject The subject is a noun phrase in the sentence and can be realised by the following forms. Noun ''Builders are at work.'' Phrase ''The large car stopped outside our house.'' Gerund ''Eating is a pleasure.'' Infinitive ''To read is easier than to write'' Clause ''That he had travelled the world was known by everyone.'' Citation I love you'''' is often heard these days.'' Definitions of Subject The subject of a Sentence is sometimes defined as the Argument that generally refers to the origin of the action or the undergoer of the state shown by the Predicate . This is a '' Semantic '' definition. Such a definition is problematic for several reasons. In languages where a Passive Voice exists, the subject of a passive verb may be the target or result of the action. For example: John was arrested. The police arrested John. In the first sentence (which is in the passive voice), ''John'' is the subject, while in the second sentence (active voice) ''the police'' is the subject and ''John'' is the object. Similarly, some verbs can be used both as Transitive and as Intransitive . An example is the English verb ''break'': John broke the chain. The chain broke. In the first sentence, ''the chain'' is the object, while in the second, it is the ''subject''. But the relation of ''the chain'' to the event described by the sentence is the same in the two cases. This can be seen by considering the fact that the two sentences can be used to describe the same situation: Whenever the first sentence is true, the second one will be true, as well. Some linguistic theories require every language to have a category of subject. However, there is no such category that is consistent for all languages. In many languages, the subject triggers Agreement morphology on the verb or auxiliary of a sentence. For example, in English one uses the form ''has'' for sentences with a Singular subject, and ''have'' in sentences with a plural subject. This is a '' Morphosyntactic '' definition. She has left. They have left. This definition works fairly well for English, except in the case of verbs that do not agree. Examples of English verbs that never carry agreement include the modals ''must, can, will, might, may''. In many languages that mark s neither core case, absolutive or ergative, carries the topic the way the nominative does in many Nominative-accusative Language s. Different theoretical traditions have treated both as subject at different times, but with no agreement. In languages that lack verb agreement and morphological case marking, one must define the nominative case (if there is one) in terms of word order. For example, in Mainland Scandinavian (Norwegian, Swedish and Danish) the subject occurs either right in front of the tensed verb of a sentence, or follows the verb but precedes the object. Finally, the subject tends to be the Topic of the proposition. In languages with no other means to mark a topic, making an object into a subject by using Passivization (''I did it → it was done'') is a way to topicalize said object. (See also Topic-prominent Language s.) Some languages can omit the subject if it is recoverable from the context of utterance ( Null Subject Language ). Many of these languages have rich subject-verb agreement (e. g. Italian ) while others have no subject-verb agreement at all ( Mandarin Chinese ). The term Pro-drop Language is used for languages where pronouns can be omitted more generally, i. e. even when they are not a subject. In some languages, like English or French, sentences must always have a syntactical subject, either a noun or noun phrase, or a pronoun, even if there is no semantic subject. This is why verbs like ''rain'' must carry a "subject" such as ''it'', even if nothing is actually "doing" the raining. ''It'' is in this case an Expletive and a Dummy Pronoun . Subject orientation The subject of a sentence is often privileged in various ways pertaining to its relation to other expressions in the sentence. One says that these other expressions are "subject-oriented". Examples of subject-oriented expressions include subject-oriented adverbs. Compare the following two sentences: Clumsily, Al sat down. Al sat down clumsily. The first sentence means that it was clumsy of Al to sit down (though the manner in which he did so may have been elegant). The second can also mean that the manner in which Al sat down was clumsy (while it may have been highly appropriate to sit down in the first place). Reflexive Pronoun s are sometimes subject-oriented. In the following sentence ''herself'' is a reflexive pronoun. Sue assigned the best student to herself. This sentence can only mean that Sue assigned the best student to ''Sue'', not that she assigned the best student to ''the best student''. |