![\"\"](\"https:\/\/plainlii.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/06\/agent.jpg\")
If you grunt at the sight of the word \u201cgrammar,\u201d you are not alone. But, I\u2019m 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.<\/p>\n
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\u2019s get rid of the PTSD from your school days.<\/p>\n
In writing, your grammar needs to be extra crisp, because you are not right there with your reader to clarify if your words don\u2019t reflect what you mean.<\/p>\n
OK, this is the one thing you have been told a little bit about. You\u2019ve 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<\/strong>, only when the verb in the sentence actually expresses an action.<\/p>\n My sister skips rope really fast.<\/p>\n My cousin sings beautifully.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n 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.<\/p>\n The mail arrived.<\/p>\n The window broke.<\/p>\n The girl felt the sun on her skin.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n The mail arriving, the window breaking, and the girl feeling the sun respond to the question \u201cwhat happened?\u201d rather than \u201cwhat did they do?\u201d For instance, it doesn\u2019t make sense to ask \u201cwhat did the mail do? The subjects here are not agents: the mail did not carry itself, the window didn\u2019t break itself, the girl simply experienced a sensation.<\/p>\n Subject as agent of the action is only one of the many semantic roles<\/strong> a subject can play. Since verbs can express more than actions, we will use the umbrella term \u201cevent\u201d to refer to actions, processes, and states. The subject can be the object of the event, a role technically called \u201ctheme<\/strong>.\u201d It can be the instrument<\/strong> of the event, an involuntary cause<\/strong> (rather than a willing or aware agent), or an experiencer<\/strong>.<\/p>\n The rain destroyed the crops. [cause]<\/p>\n The key opened the door. [instrument]<\/p>\n The judge liked the audition. [experiencer]<\/p>\n The delivery was late. \u00a0[theme]<\/p>\n The goal was scored by none other than the goalie. \u00a0[theme]<\/p><\/blockquote>\n The subject plays different semantic roles in the semantic structure of the sentence<\/strong>.<\/p>\n 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 \u201cevent\u201d 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<\/strong>.<\/p>\n The word \u201cevent\u201d may sound a bit formal. You may think of a \u201cparty to raise money for charity\u201d or a \u201csports competition.\u201d Focus simply on \u201csomething that happens.\u201d Events need characters and circumstances to happen. Syntax provides slots to place the cast of characters<\/strong> and circumstances<\/strong> of the event<\/strong> told in the sentence, whether it is something real, imaginary, or abstract.<\/p>\n 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\u2014the subject\u2014can be an agent, or a theme, or almost any other semantic role. The subject is simply who or what the event is about.<\/p>\n So, the subject is the sentence protagonist<\/strong> whether the verb is transitive (as in \u201cgive someone something\u201d) or intransitive (as in \u201carrive\u201d), expresses a action (as in \u201cresign\u201d) or a process or state (as in \u201cdisappear\u201d), or even if the sentence is in the passive voice (as in \u201cthe family was shocked by the news.\u201d)<\/p>\n Another interesting feature of the subject: it is the standard topic<\/strong> of the sentence. I know, the word topic<\/em> is thrown around so much in language arts teaching! Here, we are talking about the topic of the whole sentence<\/strong>.<\/p>\n 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:<\/p>\n The President fell ill last Thursday.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n 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<\/em>? Here\u2019s part of the story:<\/p>\n On Monday, he ate through one apple, but he was still hungry.<\/p>\n On Tuesday, he ate through two pears, but he was still hungry.<\/p>\n On Wednesday, he ate through three plums, but he was still hungry.<\/p>\n On Thursday, he ate through four strawberries, but he was still hungry.<\/p>\n On Friday, he ate through five oranges, but he was still hungry.<\/p>\n On Saturday, he ate through one piece of chocolate cake\u2026<\/p><\/blockquote>\n 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<\/em>. 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. \u201cOn Monday,\u201d \u201con Tuesday,\u201d etc. are called \u201cadjuncts of time,\u201d and are moved up from their standard position at the end of the sentence to the topic position at the beginning.<\/p>\n 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.<\/p>\n Because the stakes were so high, everyone thought he would cave.<\/p>\n As for entertainment, we used to play cards.<\/p>\n That book, they would have never let me read.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n After you state your topic, you give the reader new information about it. That juicy part of the sentence is sometimes called \u201cnews,\u201d or, to avoid confusion with \u201cnews in the media,\u201d we use the technical term \u201crheme.\u201d (The way I remember this is with the rhyme \u201ctheme and rheme.\u201d \u201cTheme\u201d for given information, \u201crheme\u201d for new information.)<\/p>\n In brief, the subject of your sentence has a role in:<\/p>\n <\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" If you grunt at the sight of the word \u201cgrammar,\u201d you are not alone. But, I\u2019m 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 […]<\/p>","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"site-sidebar-layout":"default","site-content-layout":"","ast-site-content-layout":"default","site-content-style":"default","site-sidebar-style":"default","ast-global-header-display":"","ast-banner-title-visibility":"","ast-main-header-display":"","ast-hfb-above-header-display":"","ast-hfb-below-header-display":"","ast-hfb-mobile-header-display":"","site-post-title":"","ast-breadcrumbs-content":"","ast-featured-img":"","footer-sml-layout":"","theme-transparent-header-meta":"","adv-header-id-meta":"","stick-header-meta":"","header-above-stick-meta":"","header-main-stick-meta":"","header-below-stick-meta":"","astra-migrate-meta-layouts":"default","ast-page-background-enabled":"default","ast-page-background-meta":{"desktop":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-4)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"tablet":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"mobile":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""}},"ast-content-background-meta":{"desktop":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"tablet":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"mobile":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""}},"footnotes":""},"categories":[6,10,12],"tags":[20,21,22,23,24],"class_list":["post-421","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-grammar","category-plain-language","category-writing","tag-agent","tag-semantic-role","tag-subject","tag-syntax","tag-topic"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/plainlii.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/421","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/plainlii.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/plainlii.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/plainlii.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/plainlii.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=421"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/plainlii.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/421\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/plainlii.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=421"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/plainlii.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=421"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/plainlii.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=421"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}Secret #2: Subject as Protagonist<\/h3>\n
Secret #3: Subject as Topic<\/h3>\n
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