

In attributing speech (occasionally, but optionally): "'Help me!' cried Farmer Brown.".In expletive constructions: "There were four basic causes of the Civil War." "Here is the book.".In questions (routinely): " Have you eaten breakfast yet?" " Are you ready?".The most important of these are as follows (subjects in blue): Burchfield* lists about ten situations in which the subject will come after the verb. The normal English order of subject-verb-completer is disturbed only occasionally but under several circumstances. Three cities in the country's interior were bombed.The dean's report was reviewed by the faculty senate.In fact, sometimes a passive sentence will not contain an agent. In a passive sentence, the agent is not the subject. The jury returned a verdict of manslaughter.The Johnsons added a double garage to their house.In an active sentence, the subject is the agent: Before assembling the swingset, read these instructions carefully.įor purposes of sentence analysis, the do-er or the initiator of action in a sentence is referred to as the agent of the sentence.


The simple subject of the following sentence is issue: So the subject is "computers." A simple subject is the subject of a sentence stripped of modifiers.

For instance, in the sentence "The computers in the Learning Center must be replaced," the verb is "must be replaced." What must be replaced? The computers. Ask the question, "Who or what 'verbs' or 'verbed'?" and the answer to that question is the subject. You can find the subject of a sentence if you can find the verb. The subject of a sentence is the person, place, thing, or idea that is doing or being something.
