What questions does the subject answer? You will receive the answer to this question in the submitted article. In addition, we will tell you about what parts of the speech this member of the sentence can express.
General information
Before you talk about what questions the subject answers, you should understand what it is. Subject (in syntax) is called the main member of the sentence. Such a word is grammatically independent. It denotes an object whose action is reflected in the predicate. As a rule, the subject calls what or what the speech is about in the sentence.
What questions does the subject answer?
Sometimes, for the correct and competent writing of the text, it is very important to determine the main and secondary members of the sentence. In order to do this, you should know several rules of the Russian language.
So, the subject answers the questions “Who?” or "what?". It should also be noted that when parsing a sentence, this member is emphasized by only one feature. The subject, as well as all the minor members of the proposal that relate to it, form the composition of the subject.
Expression in various parts of speech
As we found out, the subject answers the questions “Who?” or "what?". However, this does not mean that the represented member of the proposal can only appear in the form of a noun in the nominative case.
The subject is often expressed in other parts of speech, which have various forms and categories.
Pronouns
The subject of the proposal may be:
- Personal pronoun: She looked right and then left .
- Indefinite pronoun: Someone lived alone and rootless .
- Interrogative pronoun: Who did not have time, he was late .
- Relative pronoun: He does not take his eyes off the path that goes through the forest .
- Negative pronoun: No one should know this .
Other parts of speech
Having determined what questions the subject answers, it can be quite easily found in the sentence. But for this you should know that such a term is often expressed in the following parts of speech :
- Numerals: Seven - the number of Christ; Seven do not wait .
- In your own name: Anna is a dancer; Denis is a child .
- An indefinite form of the verb (or the so-called independent infinitive): Walking in the mountains during the day and night is very dangerous; To breathe is to live .
- By the adjective: Good evil never remembers .
- Communion: The past is the property of Russian history .
- Whole phrase: The five of you read pretty well .
- Adverb: Happy tomorrow is hard work .
As you can see, it’s not enough to know that the subject answers the questions “What?” or who?". Indeed, in order to correctly determine a given term of a sentence, it is necessary to know the features of all parts of speech.
Subject as a phrase
In some sentences, the subject can be expressed syntactically or lexically using indecomposable phrases. Such members usually belong to different parts of speech. Consider in which cases these phrases are most often found:
- When designating a locality, that is, when writing a geographical name (for example, the Arctic Ocean, the Baltic Sea, etc.).
- When writing the name of an institution (for example, the Ministry of Education, the Ministry of Health, etc.).
- In stable phrases (for example, agriculture, the railway, etc.).
- In winged phrases (filkin letter, Sisyphus labor , etc.).
- In the predicative constructions of the text (for example: The message "Congratulations! I really want to see you. Maybe I will come in winter" did not cause any joy in it).
- If the sentence indicates the approximate amount of something with the help of words such as “less”, “more”, “approximately”, “about”, etc. In this case, the subject is expressed as a phrase without a nominative case (for example, about eight people, over five hundred goals, etc.).
Other forms
To determine the main member of a sentence, ask questions to the subject. After all, only in this case can you determine it.
So what other combinations of parts of speech that appear in the sentence as the subject are still possible? Examples are given below:
- The pronoun or numeral “how much”, “so much”, “several” + a noun in the genitive (for example, several institutions, two pine trees, many flies, three brothers, several days, so many birds, etc.).
- A noun that expresses the number + a noun in the genitive case (for example, a part of visitors, a lot of people, a number of people, half of the students, the majority of patients, etc.).
- A pronoun, an adjective or a numeral in the nominative case, + the preposition "from" + a pronoun or a noun in the genitive case (for example, the best student, the worst of the workers, it is of all, etc.).
- An indefinite pronoun + any adjective (for example, something mysterious, someone random, something native, someone crazy, etc.).
- A personal pronoun or a noun in the nominative case + the preposition “c” + a noun in the instrumental case (for example, I am with a friend, brother and sister, etc.).
Plan of analysis of the main member of the proposal (subject)
To determine the subject in the sentence, first you must specify its method of expression. As we explained above, this could be:
- A single word that belongs to one of the following parts of speech: adjective name, indefinite form of the verb, numeral, pronoun, participle, noun in the nominative case, adverb or other unchanged form used in the text as a noun.
- Syntactically indivisible phrase. In this case, the form and meaning of the main word should be indicated.
Suggestion Parsing Example
To determine the main member of the proposal, you should ask a question to the subject. Here are some examples:
- “The river seemed to be covered in ice.” The underlying "river" (what?). It is expressed by a noun in the nominative case.
- "Around noon, a lot of clouds appear." The underlying "multiple clouds" (what?) Is expressed by a syntactically indivisible phrase that has a quantitative meaning. The main word (many) is a noun that is in the nominative case.
- "In the dark, a hairy man stumbled over something." The subject “hairy” (who?) Is expressed by the adjective and is used in the meaning of a noun in the nominative case.
- “About an hour has passed.” The subject "about an hour" (what?) Is expressed by the indirect case of a noun with the use of an excuse indicating the approximate time of the event.