Forms of Subject
| Linguistics |
|---|
| Theoretical linguistics |
|
| Descriptive linguistics |
|
| Applied and experimental linguistics |
|
| Related articles |
|
| Portal |
The subject is a noun phrase in the sentence and can be realised by the following forms
- A determinerless noun phrase, also called a bare noun phrase. In English, this is mostly limited to plural noun phrases and noun phrases headed by a mass noun.
- Builders are at work.
- A noun phrase introduced by a determiner. This complex (determiner + noun phrase) is usually called a determiner phrase:
- The large car stopped outside our house.
- A gerund. These can be shown to behave as noun phrases in many respects, for example, in being able to form determinerless phrases
- Eating is a pleasure.
- His constant hammering was very annoying.
- An infinitive. These can be shown to behave in many respects as embedded clauses, for example in allowing question words like "who."
- To read is easier than to write.
- Whom to hire is a difficult question.
- A full clause, introduced by the complementizer that, itself containing a subject and a predicate.
- That he had travelled the world was known by everyone.
- A direct quotation:
- I love you is often heard these days.
- The subject can also be implied. In the following command, the subject is the implied "you" that is the recipient of the imperative mood.
- Take out the trash!
- An expletive. These are words like it or there when they don't refer to any thing or place. For example in the following sentence "it" doesn't refer to anything.
- It rains.
- A cataphoric it. This is the use of it when it is co-referent with a subordinate clause that comes after it.
- It was known by everyone (that) he had travelled the world.
Read more about this topic: Subject (grammar)
Famous quotes containing the words forms of, forms and/or subject:
“One way to think about play, is as the process of finding new combinations for known things—combinations that may yield new forms of expression, new inventions, new discoveries, and new solutions....It’s exactly what children’s play seems to be about and explains why so many people have come to think that children’s play is so important a part of childhood—and beyond.”
—Fred Rogers (20th century)
“Our normal waking consciousness, rational consciousness as we call it, is but one special type of consciousness, whilst all about it, parted from it by the filmiest of screens, there lie potential forms of consciousness entirely different.”
—William James (1842–1910)
“Thus inevitably does the universe wear our color, and every object fall successively into the subject itself. The subject exists, the subject enlarges; all things sooner or later fall into place. As I am, so I see; use what language we will, we can never say anything but what we are; Hermes, Cadmus, Columbus, Newton, Bonaparte, are the mind’s ministers.”
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)