11 Finding Subjects

In the previous chapter we learned that a sentence has three required components:

1. It must contain at least one subject.
2. It must contain at least one verb.
3. It must express a complete thought.

But what are those first two things? What’s a subject, and what’s a verb?

Subjects — The “Doer” or the Focus

Generally speaking. the subject is the “doer” of the action in a sentence.

Garth sprinted toward the finish line.

Picture that sentence in your mind. Who’s sprinting? It’s Garth, right? So Garth is the subject in this sentence.

Let’s try another one:

Garth and his classmates sprinted toward the finish line.

Now ask yourself the same question: Who or what is doing the action in this sentence? Who is sprinting?

Well, I hope you answered “Garth” but also “his classmates” because they are all running. So, this verb has two subjects. We often group the two subjects together and call them a compound subject. But most importantly, I just want you to know that a verb can have more than one subject.

Let’s try one more sentence:

Garth is very fast.

There’s no real action in that sentence, so there isn’t really a “doer”. But I do see a verb in here — the linking verb is. When a sentence uses a linking verb instead of an action verb, we can find the subject by asking, “What is the focus of the sentence? What person or thing is the sentence describing?

Look again at the sentence above.  Who or what is being described? In other words, who is “very fast”?

It’s Garth! So Garth is the subject of this sentence.

Simple Subjects

Let’s look at yet another sentence and practice locating the subject.

The red car with a racing stripe turned the corner sharply.

If we want to identify the subject, we can ask ourselves “Who/what is doing the action in this sentence? Who/what is turning?” And you might answer the question by saying that it’s the “red car” or the “red car with a racing stripe.” Which is correct — sort of.

When you identify the subject in a sentence, I want you to think about it as just the thing/person. Leave out the extra words that describe the subject. In this instance, then, even though we have more specific details about the subject, we would just say that the subject is car. Technically that’s called the simple subject, but you don’t really need to know that. Just remember that each subject should be, in almost all cases, a single word.  More specifically, subjects are nouns and pronouns.

Let’s get a little more practice identifying simple subjects. Remember, leave out the descriptive information. Choose only the one word that expresses the subject.

Where Not To Look For The Subject

So far we’ve looked at pretty simple sentences. There weren’t too many words to choose from when identifying the subject. Now let’s take a look at a more complicated sentence. Read it carefully and try to identify the subject.

Before the meeting, the employee in the chair beside the boss distributed the agendas. 

Now, we have many methods of identifying the subject at this point, so if you’re not having trouble identifying the subject (scroll down a bit to make sure you’re right), that’s great! If you’re not quite sure, though, you might need to simplify your decision by simplifying things a bit. You see, there are some places where the subject will never be.

Those places are called prepositional phrases. That term always intimidated me when I was a student, so let’s break it down to make it less scary.

The preposition is one of our parts of speech, which you’ll explore more fully in Chapter #. Its job is to show relationships between things in a sentence. In other words, prepositions show where things are in relation to other things. For example, if I say “the pencil was under the desk,” that word under tells me where the pencil is in relation to the desk.

Some common prepositions include in, on, to, with, at, for, by, and of.

For now, think of a phrase as simply a group of words.

So, a prepositional phrase is simply a phrase (a group of words) that starts with a preposition. It also ends with a noun or pronoun called its object. I like to identify the full prepositional phrase by taking the preposition and following it with “what/whom?”  For example, if I see the phrase “under the desk” I’ll locate the preposition under and ask myself, “under what/whom?” My answer — under the desk — is my prepositional phrase.

Let’s go back to that complicated sentence above to see if we can spot some prepositional phrases.

Before the meeting, the employee in the chair beside the boss distributed the agendas. 

I see three prepositions in there: Before, in, beside. So, what are my prepositional phrases?

• Before what/whom?  –>  Before the meeting
• In what/whom?  –> in the chair
• Beside what/whom?  –>  beside the boss

Now that I’ve identified all those prepositional phrases, I know where not to look for the subject of this sentence.

Before the meeting, the employee in the chair beside the boss distributed the agendas.

There aren’t very many words to choose from now. So when I ask myself, “What is the focus of this sentence? Or who/what does the action in this sentence?” the answer is much easier to see. It’s the employee.