Could you please check if I'm right about the things I have written below about "the subject of a sentence"

Question

Hello teachers, I'd like to thank you for something. I'd like to thank you for being a member of this lovely Forum. I have recently started teaching the people in my locality English, and that is free of cost. I guess I know how it feels when you help other people with learning a foreign language.

OK. Now let me come to the point, please. Could you please check the things about "What a subject is and what it does in a sentence, and how to spot or identify it"given below?

SUBJECT:
"A subject of a sentence is that part of that sentence which performs the action expressed in the verb phrase of that sentence or that is being talked about in that sentence."

"A subject could be a single word or it could be a phrase, i.e., more than one word/a group of words, but it is always a noun (phrase) or a pronoun."

The way to identify a subject is change a postive sentence into the question that requires "a yes" or "no" in response. You will find the subject between the auxiliary verb and the main verb, if it is an interrogative sentence requiring "yes" or "no" in answer.
For example if we change "I am eating an apple" into "Am I eating an apple", the word (or the word group) that comes between "Am" and "eating" will be the subject. If there is no auxiliary verb in the sentence -- for example "Present simple (positive sentence)" and "past simple (positive sentence)" - then use "DO/DOES (for the present simple tense)" and "DID" (for the past simple tense)" to form the interrogative sentence.

Englishmaven · Accepted Answer

"A subject of a sentence is that part of that sentence which performs the action expressed in the verb phrase of that sentence or that is being talked about in that sentence."

I would reject this because the subject of the sentence is a grammatical entity. It might be the doer of the verb, the agent. But it might not be the doer of the verb. For example, in passive sentences, the subject is not the agent.

The window was broken by Bill. The window was broken.

"The window" is the subject, which we can prove grammatically, but the window did not do the breaking. Bill did.
If we manipulate the subject from singular to plural, we have to change the verb accordingly. That proves what the subject is.

The window was broken...
The windows were broken...

Usually, verbs have only one past tense form, so you may have to change the sentence from past to present to run this little test. The boy went to school. I think "boy" is the subject. Let's test it. Change the sentence to the present (and that proves the verb because only verbs can be changed for tense).

The boy goes to school. (Change the subject from singular to plural. If the verbs, or what I'm testing as the verb, changes, then I have proven my subject.

The boys go to school. I have shown my subject-verb relationship. That is the best way to identify your subject in my opinion.

The problem with saying that the subject does the action of the verb is that the subject doesn't always do the action of the verb, as seen in the passive sentence example. Additionally, not all verbs show action, so to speak. And there are words that show action that are not verbs. Gerunds, for example, "show action," but they are not verbs in that they do not carry tense.

Running is good exercise for the boy.The running boy is my brother. "Running" shows action, but it is not the subject of the sentence. And you could claim that the boy is doing the running, but "running" is not the subject of the sentence.

Laborious · Answer

EnglishmavenGerunds, for example, "show action," but they are not verbs in that they do not carry tense.

But they (gerunds) can take an object after them and they can be modified by an adverb, both are the characterstics or properties of verbs. Unless we see that used in a sentence, we can't tell whether it's a verb or something else.

How about one of these tests?

(1). To identify the subject of a sentence, ask yourself "What or who verbs/verbed?" The answer to this question would be subject.

or

(2). You could change a declaritive sentence to its interrogative form, and you will find the subject between the helping verb and the main verb, for example, If we change "I am writing a letter." to "Am I writing a letter?", what we see between the helping verb and the main verb will be the 'subject'.

Note: Those tests cannot be applied to "passive sentences".

Thank you.

Englishmaven · Answer

You can ask those questions of a passive sentence. And the answer will be the agent, the one who did it, not the subject.

The window was broken.

Who or what broke? Not the window, but it is the subject. I still disagree.

Laborious · Answer

Thanks a lot, Englishmaven, for your time. I'd like to ask you, then, how you would define a "subject", please. I've got confused now about this thing. How should I explain what a subject is to my students, please?

CalifJim · Answer

Laborious"A subject could be a single word or it could be a phrase, i.e., more than one word/a group of words, but it is always a noun (phrase) or a pronoun."

It is sufficient to say "A subject is always a noun phrase" because in modern grammar a single noun counts as a noun phrase, and so does a pronoun.

LaboriousThe way to identify a subject is change a postive sentence into the question that requires "a yes" or "no" in response.

When teaching beginners, you may find that the flaw in this test for a subject is that when the students are not yet at the level of knowing what a subject is, they are far from being able to transform a declarative sentence into an interrogative one. In other words, I believe you have this backwards. If you need to use this method to find the subject of a sentence, you have to know how to form a question first. But you can't form a question by inverting a subject and its verb unless you know what the subject is first. That is, it's all too circular — unless you are already fluent in English, which they are not.

On the other hand, if the students can identify verbs and nouns, they may be able to tell where the subject of an interrogative sentence is. However, that in itself does not serve as a definition of a subject.
______

The definition of a subject is actually a lot more complicated than it looks, and in my opinion there's not much to be gained by presenting a strictly accurate definition of 'subject' in the beginning stages of learning a language. A huge list of examples is almost always better than a strict definition. Approximations like "A subject is what or who the speaker is talking about" or "The subject of a sentence is the topic of the sentence (but not what is said about that topic, which is the predicate)" may be enough at first.

With a carefully chosen set of examples, you can even start with completely inaccurate 'definitions' like "The subject is the first noun phrase in a sentence": John is my cousin. This pen was given to me. Most interesting stories start with a mystery. You can refine the definition step by step, for example, by showing how introductory phrases should be ignored (In my opinion Fred is wrong. After trying three times, she finally succeeded.), or by showing that a sentence may have multiple subjects (When everyone was ready, the whole group boarded the bus.) At some point the student's intuition takes over. It's like magic.

CJ

Could you please check if I'm right about the things I have written below about "the subject of a sentence"

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