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The Parts of the Sentence
1. The Principal Parts: the Subject, the Predicate.
2. The Secondary Parts: the Object, the Attribute, the Adverbial Modifier.
3. The Independent Elements: Direct Address, Parenthesis, Interjections.
The Subject
is the principal part of a two-member sentence which is grammatically independent of the other parts of the sentence & on which the second principal part (the predicate) is grammatically dependent, i.e. in most cases it agrees with the subject in person & number.
| The Subject can denote - a living being, - a lifeless thing, - an abstract notion. | The Subject can be expressed by - one word, - a phrase, - a construction, - a clause |
Ways of Expressing the Subject
1. a noun (in the common or possessive case) or a nominal phrase
eg. The small boy likes to read.
John's is a noble heart.
2. a pronoun or a pronominal phrase
personal eg. I did it.
possessive eg. Theirs is not a very comfortable flat.
demonstrative eg. That is my house.
defining eg. Allare present.
indefinite eg. Somebody was in the room.
negative eg. Nothing was to be done.
interrogative eg. Who tore the book?
conjunctive eg. I don't know who tore the book.
relative eg. This is the boy who tore the book.
3. a numeral (cardinal or ordinal) or a numeric phrase
eg. Seven can not be divided by two.
These two are unable to do it.
The first was a young man with a dog.
A substantivised adjective or participle
eg. The wounded were taken good care of.
The dying must be left in peace.
An infinitive, an infinitive phrase, a for-to infinitive construction
eg. To live is to work.
To live a happy life means to live happily.
It was impossible for him to come.
A gerund, a gerundial phrase, a Classical or a Half-gerundial construction
eg. Lying doesn't go well with you.
Winning the war is what we want.
My being French might upset him a little.
Any part of speech used as a quotation
eg. "On" is a preposition.
An indivisible word-group
eg. Half an hour is not enough. The needle and thread is lost.
There's a lot of truth in it. 2 and 2is 4.
George Gordon Byron was born in 1788. The USA is a great country.
A clause
eg. What I want to do is to save us both.
It's important that you should do it.
"IT" as the Subject of the Sentence
When the pronoun "it" is used as the subject of the sentence it may represent a living being or a thing, then it is a notional subject. Sometimes, however, it does not represent any living being or thing & performs a purely grammatical function, then it is a formal subject.
The Notional Subject
| The personal pronoun "it" can denote | The demonstrative pronoun "it" can point out | |||
| a thing eg. The door opened. Itwas opened by a young girl. | an abstract idea eg. I told them about my idea. They liked it. | a person eg. - Who is this? -It's Jonh. | a thing eg. Itwas a large room. | a notion eg. He came late. Itmade his father angry. |
The Formal Subject
| The impersonal pronoun "it" can denote some natural phenomena or time & distance | The introductory pronoun "it" introduces the real subject | The emphatic pronoun "it" emphasizes a part of the sentence |
| eg. It is winter. Itis stuffy here. It is 5 min past 6. It is a long way to the station. | eg. It's a shame for you to speak so. (For you to speak so is a shame.) It is a pleasure to teach her. (To teach her is a pleasure.) | eg. It was we who went to the cinema yesterday. It was yesterday that we went to the cinema. It was the cinema that we went to yesterday. |
The Predicate
is the second principal part of the sentence which expresses an action, state or quality of the person or thing denoted by the subject. It is grammatically dependent upon the subject. The predicate contains a finite verb.
According to the structure the predicate can be
Date: 2016-06-12; view: 764
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