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Anonymous Posted 15 years ago
Grammar

Sentence Patterns.

English is my second language. Please, forgive and correct me if I use it wrong.

I have the following sentence:

"The number of serious crimes in the United States decreased."

Initially, I thought that "The number of serious crimes in the United States" was the subject, and that "decreased" was the verb. However, when I changed the sentence's order to "The number of serious crimes decreased in the United States", I started wondering if "in the United States" was not part of the subject.
  

Top answer

" The "core" of the sentence is: The number decreased. The other phrases ( of serious crimes , in the United States ) are adjectival or adverbial, in roles of modifiers. A complete noun phrase can also be considered as a subject - the subject noun phrase is the simple subject with all its modifiers.

  • " The "core" of the sentence is: The number decreased.
  • The other phrases ( of serious crimes , in the United States ) are adjectival or adverbial, in roles of modifiers.
  • A complete noun phrase can also be considered as a subject - the subject noun phrase is the simple subject with all its modifiers.
  • The subject noun phrase is different in your two different writings of the sentence.
  • )
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1 Answers
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The simple subject is simply the noun "number."

The "core" of the sentence is: The number decreased.

The other phrases (of serious crimes, in the United States) are adjectival or adverbial, in roles of modifiers.

A complete noun phrase can also be considered as a subject - the subject noun phrase is the simple subject with all its modifiers. The s

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