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 pronouns 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.
Read more about this topic: Subject (grammar)
Famous quotes containing the words subject and/or orientation:
“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)
“Every orientation presupposes a disorientation.”
—Hans Magnus Enzensberger (b. 1929)