Subject

Principle Parts of Sentence

Parts of Sentence

It is common to distinguish between main and secondary parts of a sentence. Traditionally the subject and the predicate are regarded as the primary or principal parts of the sentence and the attribute, the object and the adverbial modifier – as the secondary parts of the sentence. The subject and the predicate make the predication, without them the sentence would not exist at all. All other parts may or may not be there. If they are there, they serve to define or modify either the subject or the predicate, or each other.

The chief criterion for the division of all the other words of a sentence into parts of the sentence is their combinability.

The subject is the independent member of a two-member predication, containing the person component of predicativity. The subject is generally defined as a word or a group of words denoting the thing which is spoken about. This traditional definition is logical rather than grammatical and it is not enough to recognize the subject. We need one more criterion that of word order in English. In grammar the subject is defined as one of the principle parts with which the grammatical predicate agrees in form. The subject may be expressed by different parts of speech: a noun in the common case, a personal pronoun in the nominative case, a demonstrative pronoun, a substantivized adjective, a numeral, an infinitive, and a gerund. It may also be expressed by a phrase.

The subject may be either notional or formal. The notional subject denotes or points out a person or non-person, that is various kinds of concrete things, substances, abstract notions or happening.

E.g. The policemen stopped back.

Building houses becomes more difficult.

The formal subject neither denotes nor points out any person or non-person and is only a structural element of the sentence filling the position of the subject. Thus a formal subject functions only as a position-filler. In English there are two such position-fillers: it and there.

The formal subject expressed by it is found in two patterns of sentences: those with impersonal it and those with introductory it.

E.g. It’s spring.

It seems that she lost her way. (Impersonal)

It was almost two o’clock.

E.g. It felt funny watching myself on television.

It’s fun being a singer. (Introductory)

It did not occur to her that the idea was his. (Anticipatory)

Sentences with a notional subject introduced by there express the existence or coming into existence of a person or non-person denoted by the subject. Such sentences may be called existential sentences or sentences of presentation. They are employed where the subject presents some new idea or the most important piece of information.

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