Subject

We defined the subject as such element of a sentence that embodies the personal feature of the predicativity. But this definition does not show formal and semantic (referential) characteristics of the subject. From the formal point of view the definition of the English subject seems rather simple: the subject occupies the first position in the sentence. Still, there are some problems. The first is with the sentences of existence, those that begin with the element there. In such sentences from the formal point of view the subject should be there, yet we somehow are not ready to accept the idea. We would rather take the nouns following the verbs in these constructions as subjects. And there are some reason for that. The reason is the form of the verb used after there. The verb agrees, if possible, with the first noun used after it. So the definition of the subject should be modified and include a clause about agreement. But the clause of agreement appears unnecessary if the verb is not to be and is used in one of the forms of the past tense. Besides, agreement in number in English does not always follow the formal number of the noun (compare The family is big and The family are tall). So the formal definition of subject in English should be as follows: the subject is a group occupying a special position in different types of sentences and agreed with the predicate in person or/and in number according to the rules regulating this agreement. Such definition presupposes that it must be amended with a rather detailed description of sentence structures with indication of position of the subject in them and the rules of agreement. And still, the majority of sentences used by English speakers have their subject in the first position. This is typical for majority of declarative sentences. Other types of sentences appear to be modifications of this basic order in which alteration of the subject position is caused either by specific elements included into them( as with sentences with there, either, neither) or by specific meanings (as in interrogative or exclamatory declarative sentences).

The meaning of the subject presents more problems than its form. We expect that the subject should indicate the doer of the action or at least the central element of the situation. But often it means quite different things. It may name not only the doer of the action but also its object as in the passive constructions or its instrument or even the place (The house is not lived in), moreover it may name the same thing which is named by the part of the predicate (It is a dog) or even nothing at all (It is cold). This evidence makes us define the meaning of the subject as anything the speaker wants to present as the personal element of predicativity, sometimes irrespective of the actual relations between the components of the situation the sentence describes. It means that the subject is the formal indicator of the choice made by the speaker. This makes the formal features of the subject and in English its position the only means of identifying it. We may say that any element a word or a structure that happens to be in the position envisaged by the construction for the subject becomes the subject of the sentence. This conclusion is supported by a wide variety of elements that may be subjects in English. We find it in this function not only pronouns *** , nouns *** , specialised verbal forms *** , but also adverbs ***, adjectives ***, clauses ***, and even prepositions *** and interjections ***.

We have to mention here that as the result of its fixed position the subject could not be very complicated and sometimes it becomes what might be called analytical, that is in the subject position we find a formal element filling in the position and somewhere further in the sentence we can see the description of what is meant to be the embodiment of the personal component of predicativity: ***.

These characteristics of the subject indicate that the meaning of the subject results from the structural features of the sentence and is only obliquely connected with the functions of the elements named by the words in the position of the subject in those fragments of reality reflected in the sentence. It suggests that referential semantics of sentences must be rather a complicated structure in which the fragment of reality referred to is only a part. We shall discuss this suggestion a bit later in the section dealing with semantics of the sentence.

The predicate embodies the temporal and the modal components of the predicativity. Besides it names the relationships between the nominal phrase incorporating the personal component of the predication and other nominal groups. This naming function of the predicate creates the semantic basis of predication that is the connection of the subject and predicate of a two-member sentence. This connection will be described in the other section, the section dealing with the sentence meaning. In this section we shall discuss the forms and components of the predicate.

The predicate, as it was shown in the previous paragraphs, is a union of a certain name and two predicativity features. These predicativity features might be shown either together in the form of one word or separately. In the first case the structure of the predicate is known as simple. If these two features of predicativity are separated from the naming component of the predicate and are formed as a separate name the predicate is called complex or compound. In English the modal feature of predicativity is often embodied in a special group of words known as modal verbs. These modal verbs might either indicate only modality and be very close in meaning to certain mood forms or maybe names of certain attitudes and constitute thus a group of lexical modal verbs or modal constructions. In the latter case the verbs have their own grammatical modality — moods.

The temporal feature of predicativity always has its grammatical indication in the form of the verb, but special temporal elements connected with the development of the action or state named by the lexical component might be separated and the words naming different stages of development are known as aspectual verbs. The structures with the aspectual verbs produce a problem for classifying them. These verbs might be connected either with nouns (They began a new discussion) or with the Infinitive or the Gerund (They began to discuss it anew; They started discussing it anew). The structures with the noun must be classified as constructions with the direct object. The problem is how to classify the structures with the verbals. We may treat them as objects because they are synonymous to the constructions with nouns. But these combinations do not easily permit passive transformations and besides the verbals have connection of predication with the subject which fact is supported by deletion of the aspectual verb (They started to discuss it anew—> They discussed it). Thus we find more evidence for taking the combinations of an aspectual verb with a verbal as one member of the sentence both elements of which are directly connected to the subject.

The second element of the predicate might also be a noun or an adjective. In this case The modal and temporal features of predicativity find embodiment in special lexical items known as link verbs. These link verbs may show modality and temporality both lexically by the meaning of the verb itself (look, remain) and grammatically by the tense and mood forms of it. The intransitive verbs in English irrespective of their lexical meaning may function both as a simple predicate and a link verb simultaneously. If you take a sentence like He stood there angry we can see that the verb to stand in this sentence names the action of the subject and at the same time is used as a connecting element for the adjective which names the state of the same subject.

Thus we see that lexically and compositionally English predicates are very variable and the only constant element in them is that they show the temporal and the modal feature of predicativity.