Subject of a Sentence
What Is the Subject of a Sentence? (with Examples)
The subject of a sentence is the person or thing doing the action or being described. For example (subjects shaded):- Lee ate the pie. (Lee is the subject of the sentence. Lee is the subject of the main verb ate; i.e., Lee is doing the action.)
- Lee is putting on weight. (Lee is the subject of the sentence. Lee is the subject of the main verb is; i.e., Lee is being described.)
Read more about predicates.
Simple Subject, Complete Subject, and Compound Subject
The subject of a sentence will be a noun or a pronoun (including all the modifiers that go with it). For example:- Pierre puts a lot of garlic in his food. (Pierre is the subject, and puts a lot of garlic in his food is the predicate. This is an example of a simple subject. A simple subject is just one word without any modifiers.)
- That boy puts a lot of garlic in his food. (That boy is an example of a complete subject. It is the simple subject (in this case, boy plus all modifiers.)
- That new boy from Paris puts a lot of garlic in his food. (That new boy from Paris is a complete subject. It is the simple subject (boy) plus all modifiers.)
- Pierre and Claudette put a lot of garlic in their food. (Pierre and Claudette is a compound subject. That just means it is made up of more than one element.)
- That new boy from Paris and the tall girl with the long hair put a lot of garlic in their food. (That new boy from Paris and the tall girl with the long hair is a compound subject made up of two complete subjects.)
Subjects in Different Sentence Structures
The typical sentence structures are:The subject performs an action:
- My dog bit the postman.
- My dog is boisterous. (When the subject is being described, the verb (in this case, is) will be a linking verb.)
- My dog is the one in the middle. (When the subject is being identified (which is just another way of being described), the verb will be a linking verb.)
- My dog was taken to the vet. (When the subject has an action done to it, the sentence is called a passive sentence.)
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