Subject Analysis PDF

**The Subject** ***1) Syntactic characteristics*** The subject is expressed by means of noun phrase items: **- the noun (phrase)**, e.g. ***The library** closes at 8 o'clock.* **- two or more coordinated nouns which make up**: a\. A compound subject representing only one element, e.g. ***A grea...

**The Subject** ***1) Syntactic characteristics*** The subject is expressed by means of noun phrase items: **- the noun (phrase)**, e.g. ***The library** closes at 8 o'clock.* **- two or more coordinated nouns which make up**: a\. A compound subject representing only one element, e.g. ***A great poet and revolutionist** was lost when Shelley died;* b\. Coordinated subjects, e.g. ***Tom and Maggie** are the principal characters in "The Mill on the Floss".* **- a noun substitute:** a\. a pronoun (personal, possessive, demonstrative, interrogative, indefinite, negative) e.g. *Can **you** drive? **His** is a large family. **That's** his bad luck. **Who's** there? **Nothing** was said for a long time. **Everybody** is present. **Some people** are missing.* b\. a numeral: e.g. ***Four** were missing.* ***The first** was a tall lady with dark hair.* c\. a non-finite form (infinitive or gerund): e.g. ***To escape** would be difficult.* ***Reading aloud** will help you a lot;* d\. a complex construction: **Nominative with Infinitive construction: *He*** *happened **to be** in town at the moment.* ***Louise** had been overheard **to begin** a conversation with her brother* **Nominative with Participle: *He*** *was noticed **entering the house. The children** were seen **running to the river*** **e. a subject clause** e.g. ***Whether he admits it or not** is another matter.* **2) *Classification of subjects in point of content.*** According to the criterion of content or semantic value, subjects may be classified into: **grammatical, impersonal, logical.** *Grammatical* (formal) subjects are directly connected with the predicate and therefore usually determine concord between the latter and the subject, e.g. ***He** knows* *you.* *Impersonal* subjects do not refer to a definite person or thing; they lack semantic content altogether. The impersonal subjects are expressed by the impersonal pronoun ***it**.* **It** is an **impersonal** empty subject of: \- impersonal verbs: *dew, lighten, rain, snow, thunder* e.g. ***It** often rains in autumn. **It** dewed heavily overnight.* \- sentences expressing time, weather, distance or a state of things in general, e.g. ***It** was late when I arrived, **it** was midnight**.*** ***It** is getting colder and colder.* ***It's** a long way to the station.* ***It** was very pleasant at the seaside.* ***- Indefinite/Generic Subject**:* (subjects of vague or general meaning) are expressed in English by the following pronouns: **- *they***, meaning an indefinite group of people e.g. ***They** say I am like my father.* **- *we, you, one****,* meaning any person, people in general e.g. ***We** learn to restrain ourselves as we get older. Here **one** could wander unseen.* ***- people**:* *e.g. **People** drink a lot of tea in Britain.* ***Logical*** subjects point to the agent, that is the real author or doer/performer of the action. Usually, the grammatical subject is identical with the logical subject. Yet, there are two categories of exceptions where the grammatical subject is not identical with the logical subject: a\. Passive constructions: the logical subject (the agent, the author of the action) is not identical with the grammatical subject of the sentence, e.g. ***New victories** have been won by our sportsmen.* (gram. subj.) (logical subj.) b\. Constructions with introductory elements a\) Emphatic constructions may underline or single out any part of the sentence (except the predicate). The grammatical subject is expressed by *it*, while the real (logical) subject is placed within the framework of the clause, e.g. *It's **his stubbornness** that* *exasperates me*. b\) Anticipatory constructions: the grammatical introductory subject is expressed by *it* and *there.* ***It*** anticipates the logical subject of the sentence when it is an infinitive, a gerund or a subject clause, e.g. ***It** is necessary **to start** at once.* ***It's** no use **crying** over spilt milk.* ***It** seems **he is right.*** ***There*** is used in constructions where emphasis is laid merely on the existence or absence of the logical subject. The introductory subject *there* anticipates the logical subject of the sentence when the predicate is expressed by: **- existential verbs**: *be, exist, happen, live, occur,* *e.g. **There** will be an adequate supply of goods.* ***There** once lived in the flat an eccentric lady.* ***There** occurred an unexpected incident during the meeting.* ***-* verbs of seeming**: *appear, seem,* *e.g. **There** appeared some marks on the X-ray plate. **There** seemed to be no escape.* ***-* aspectual verbs**: *arise, begin, emerge, remain, start,* *e.g. **There** began to be a violent commotion. **There** emerged a new philosophical trend at the turn of the century.* ***- verbs of motion**: arrive, come, run,* *e.g. At that moment **there** came a knock at the door. **There** arrived a shabbily dressed man.* The insertion of ***there*** consists of the following operations: movement of the subject NP in post-verbal position, i.e. in between the verb and the rest of the sentence; insertion of *there* in the position left empty by the moved subject, e.g. ***A book** is on the table -- **There** is **a book** on the table.* ***There*** becomes subject of the sentence and behaves like a subject, i.e. it can act as a subject in general and tag questions: *Is **there** any coffee*? ***There's** nothing wrong, is **there?*** and it can act as subject in non-finite clauses: *I don't want **there** to be any misunderstanding.* *He was disappointed at **there** being so little to do.* The NP functioning as logical subject is usually **indefinite**. Indefinite reference of the NP may be realized by the indefinite and zero article, indefinite determiners and pronouns (*any, some, anything, something, everything, much*), negative determiners and pronouns (*no, nothing*), numerals. e.g. ***There** is **a strange man** in the hall*. ***There** are **no** **changes** in the document.* ***There** is **much noise** in the street.* ***There** isn't **anything new** in his article.* The insertion of ***there*** is usually conditioned by the presence in the sentence of an adverbial of place or time. When the adverbial of place is in initial position, *there* is no longer obligatory e.g. *On the table **there** stood plates full of cakes*. *High above the city on a tall column stood the statue of the Happy Prince.* ***Parallel structures with it and there:*** *It* and *there* are often interchangeable; they often share the feature of forward reference to the real subject they anticipate. The difference lies in the tendency of *it* to anticipate\[+definite\] subjects, while *there* usually anticipates \[--definite\] ones. Compare: ***It's** time we left (the time has come for us to leave)*. ***There's*** time, no need to hurry (There's enough time). Impersonal constructions have alternative forms with *it* and *there* as subjects: e.g. ***It** was still raining. **There** had been rain the night before.*