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Subject (grammar)

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The '''subject''' of a sentence is (in English) an obligatory sentence element. It is also one of the two main parts of a sentence, the other being the predicate (grammar) predicate. '''''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 (linguistics) sentence is sometimes defined as the verb argument argument that generally refers to the origin of the action or the undergoer of the state shown by the predicate (grammar) predicate. This is a ''semantics 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 verb transitive and as intransitive verb 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. In many languages, the subject triggers agreement (linguistics) agreement morphology on the verb or auxiliary of a sentence. For example, in English one uses the form ''has'' for sentences with a singular (grammar) singular subject, and ''have'' in sentences with a plural subject. This is a ''morphosyntax 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 a language that marks morphology (linguistics) morphological case on the arguments of a proposition, the subject tends to be marked with the least salient morphology, or is left unmarked. For example, in German, the subject typically carries the nominative case. But sometimes the subject may carry other cases, like dative, so this definition is not perfect, even for these languages. For others, it does not work at all: in ergative-absolutive languages the object of a transitive verb carries the same case (absolutive) as the subject of an intransitive verb, and the subject of a transitive verb carries a marked case (ergative). In languages that lack verb agreement and morphological case marking, one must define the subject in terms of word order. For example, in Mainland Scandinavian (Norwegian, Swedish and Danish) the subject must occur either right in front of the tensed verb of a sentence, or it must follow the verb, but precede the object. Finally, the subject tends to be the topic (linguistics) topic of the proposition. In languages with no other means to mark a topic, making an object into a subject by using passive voice passivization (''I did it → it was done'') is a way to topicalize said object. (See also topic-prominent languages.) 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 language 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 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''. Category:Syntax br:Rener (yezhadur) ca:Subjecte cs:PodmÄ›t da:Subjekt (grammatik) de:Subjekt (Grammatik) es:Sujeto (gramÃ¡tica) fr:Sujet (grammaire) he:× ×•×©×? ja:ä¸»èªž nl:Onderwerp (subject) pl:Podmiot (gramatyka) sv:Subjekt wa:Sudjet

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