Subject of a sentence bewilders
because subject has multiple meanings

The subject of a sentence is one of the most basic concepts of English grammar. Native English speakers have no difficulty applying the concept when they talk. Yet if you try to get them to apply the concept to their writing, you might as well speak in Urdu.

A tiny change in terminology and a cool grammar trick will help your students master the concept.

Why the problem?

In English the word subject has one meaning in everyday speech and a totally different meaning in grammar. Take this sentence:

Unlike you, I would rather hear jazz than classical music.

The conversational subject is music. The grammatical subject — what English teachers call the subject of the sentence —is I.

Confusing? Sure. But students are familiar with situations in which an English word has a specialized meaning in a specific context. Examples:

• The down that fills a comforter is not the same down that students see on a football field.

• The chicken who refuses to fight is not the same chicken that lays eggs.

Students can cope as long as they know the phrase subject of a sentence has a specialized meaning in the context of a discussion of grammar and language. Problems arise only when students assume a term means exactly the same thing in every context.

However, you can minimize the confusion by changing your terminology slightly.

Drop the misleading expression subject of a sentence in favor of the more accurate term subject of a verb.

How to see the subject of a sentence

To help students locate the subject of a sentence, English language and linguistics scholar Rei Noguchi uses some descriptive rules of grammar that native English speakers absorb from infancy.

In effect, what Noguchi suggests is two ways of identifying the subject of a sentence. If both methods give the same result, you can be sure you found the subject.

1) Declarative sentence + tag line

The process is easier to show than to discuss. It begins with a declarative sentence.

Note: this process for finding the subject of a sentence will not work with a sentence fragment.

The first identification procedure is to add a tag to the original sentence, just as Noguchi shows when he discusses tacit knowledge of pronouns and nouns. The pronoun in the tag line of sentences tells the person and number of the subject:

• The pronoun he replaces singular masculine nouns.

• The pronoun she replaces singular feminine nouns.

• The pronoun they replaces plural nouns of any gender.

• The pronoun it replaces singular neuter nouns or word groups functioning as nouns.

2) Statement into a question

The second step is to turn the original declarative sentence into a question. That means

I am tired.

becomes

Am I tired?

If the sentence has a helping verb, it slides to the left. If there is no helping verb, you slip some form of the verb do into the sentence.

Examples of how the process works

In the following six sets of sentences, A is the original sentence, B is the sentence with the tag added, and C is the original sentence turned into a question.

Set 1

A. Cats and dogs are natural enemies.

B. Cats and dogs are natural enemies, aren't they?

C. Aren't cat and dogs natural enemies?

Set 2

A. My boss, who is normally professional and thoughtful, neglected to mention the software upgrade.

B. My boss, who is normally professional and thoughtful, neglected to mention the software upgrade, didn't he?

C. Didn't my boss, who is normally professional and thoughtful, neglect to mention the software upgrade?

Set 3

A. The winners of the state elections and the local elections will take office in January.

B. The winners of the state elections and the local elections will take office in January, won't they?

C. Won't the winners of the state elections and the local elections take office in January?

Set 4

A. Jack got into a fight and had three cuts on his nose.

B. Jack got into a fight and had three cuts on his nose, didn't he?

C. Didn't Jack get into a fight and have three cuts on his nose?

Set 5

A. Doing dusting isn't one of Bev's favorite activities.

B. Doing dusting isn't one of Bev's favorite activities, is it?

C. Isn't doing dusting one of Bev's favorite activities?

Set 6

A. Whether Evan wants to or not, Joyce should make him do homework before supper.

B. Whether Evan wants to or not, Joyce should make him do homework before supper, shouldn't she?

C. Whether Evan wants to or not, shouldn't Joyce should make him do homework before supper?

Interpreting the results

In effect, what Noguchi is suggesting is two ways of identifying the subject of a sentence.

In each of the tag sentences (the ones labeled B), the pronoun at the end of the sentence refers to the subject of the verb, which is what people mean by the misleading term subject of the sentence. From the pronoun, you can make a good guess at the subject.

In yes-no questions, any helping verb moves to the left. (In the sentences without a helping verb, the appropriate form of do is used as the helping verb.) The noun or noun substitute to the right of the moved verb is the subject of the sentence.

If results of both two sentences point to the same word or group of words, bingo! that's the subject.

Some peculiar situations

There are times when either the tag or the yes-no question will produce a sentence that is grammatically proper but doesn't make logical sense to English speakers. That doesn't mean the subject-identification strategy doesn't work.

Nagouchi explains what it really means is that usage conventions are logical to native speakers and violations of those conventions — even if grammatically correct — are illogical.

The strategies for finding the subject of a sentence also point to the subject's verb.