If you grunt at the sight of the word “grammar,” you are not alone. But, I’m here to tell you it is a conditioned response to utterly bad English teachers. If you write, grammar is your friend. If you read, grammar is your friend.
Grammar is not the gestapo of language. It is more of a virtual referee of communication. Grammar rules are in imprinted in our heads so we can communicate with each other. Over time, people have tried to write some of those rules down. Some rules have been captured correctly. Others merely reflect the ignorance or bias of the self-appointed enforcer. So, let’s get rid of the PTSD from your school days.
In writing, your grammar needs to be extra crisp, because you are not right there with your reader to clarify if your words don’t reflect what you mean.
Secret #1: Subject as Agent, and Theme, and Cause, and Instrument
OK, this is the one thing you have been told a little bit about. You’ve been told that the subject of the sentence is the agent of the action, right? Wrong! The subject may be the agent of the action, only when the verb in the sentence actually expresses an action.
My sister skips rope really fast.
My cousin sings beautifully.
So, if not actions, you ask, what other things can the verb tell us about? The verb can express a state or a process for which there is no agency, because they simply happen or are carried out by an agent not in the picture.
The mail arrived.
The window broke.
The girl felt the sun on her skin.
The mail arriving, the window breaking, and the girl feeling the sun respond to the question “what happened?” rather than “what did they do?” For instance, it doesn’t make sense to ask “what did the mail do? The subjects here are not agents: the mail did not carry itself, the window didn’t break itself, the girl simply experienced a sensation.
Subject as agent of the action is only one of the many semantic roles a subject can play. Since verbs can express more than actions, we will use the umbrella term “event” to refer to actions, processes, and states. The subject can be the object of the event, a role technically called “theme.” It can be the instrument of the event, an involuntary cause (rather than a willing or aware agent), or an experiencer.
The rain destroyed the crops. [cause]
The key opened the door. [instrument]
The judge liked the audition. [experiencer]
The delivery was late. [theme]
The goal was scored by none other than the goalie. [theme]
The subject plays different semantic roles in the semantic structure of the sentence.
Secret #2: Subject as Protagonist
If we cannot define subject as agent, how do we define it? First, think of the sentence as a mini-stage for communication. Also, remember we are now using the umbrella term “event” to talk about what the verb expresses in the sentence. We will see that the subject plays one single role in the syntactic structure of the sentence.
The word “event” may sound a bit formal. You may think of a “party to raise money for charity” or a “sports competition.” Focus simply on “something that happens.” Events need characters and circumstances to happen. Syntax provides slots to place the cast of characters and circumstances of the event told in the sentence, whether it is something real, imaginary, or abstract.
The subject is, you guessed it, the leading character of the sentence. Just as in a movie the main character can be a villain or a hero, in a sentence, the main character—the subject—can be an agent, or a theme, or almost any other semantic role. The subject is simply who or what the event is about.
So, the subject is the sentence protagonist whether the verb is transitive (as in “give someone something”) or intransitive (as in “arrive”), expresses a action (as in “resign”) or a process or state (as in “disappear”), or even if the sentence is in the passive voice (as in “the family was shocked by the news.”)
Secret #3: Subject as Topic
Another interesting feature of the subject: it is the standard topic of the sentence. I know, the word topic is thrown around so much in language arts teaching! Here, we are talking about the topic of the whole sentence.
The subject is the topic of the sentence in standard (aka canonical) isolated sentences. In the following sentence, the President is what the sentence is about:
The President fell ill last Thursday.
But in larger text, the sentence as a whole could be about something other than its subject. Have you ever read or been read to The Very Hungry Caterpillar? Here’s part of the story:
On Monday, he ate through one apple, but he was still hungry.
On Tuesday, he ate through two pears, but he was still hungry.
On Wednesday, he ate through three plums, but he was still hungry.
On Thursday, he ate through four strawberries, but he was still hungry.
On Friday, he ate through five oranges, but he was still hungry.
On Saturday, he ate through one piece of chocolate cake…
In all of these sentences, the event is eating and entity doing the eating (the subject) is the caterpillar. But would you say these sentences are just about the caterpillar? Rather, these sentences are about what the caterpillar ate each day of the week. We know the caterpillar is our protagonist, so now the sentences move the plot forward by telling us about timing first thing in each sentence. “On Monday,” “on Tuesday,” etc. are called “adjuncts of time,” and are moved up from their standard position at the end of the sentence to the topic position at the beginning.
The topic is what you write about in the information structure of the sentence. It is typically the subject, but with some grammar magic, it can be any other part of the sentence.
Because the stakes were so high, everyone thought he would cave.
As for entertainment, we used to play cards.
That book, they would have never let me read.
After you state your topic, you give the reader new information about it. That juicy part of the sentence is sometimes called “news,” or, to avoid confusion with “news in the media,” we use the technical term “rheme.” (The way I remember this is with the rhyme “theme and rheme.” “Theme” for given information, “rheme” for new information.)
In brief, the subject of your sentence has a role in:
- the syntactic structure of the sentence as main character in the event.
- the semantic structure role of the sentence which varies with verb meaning. It can agent, instrument, cause, experiencer, or theme.
- the information structure of the sentence, which varies with the goal of the writer. It can be the topic, or what the sentence is about, or (part of) the news, or what the writer has to say about the topic.
