Subjects, verbs, prepositional phrases, subordinators and grammatical subjects

Every complete sentence must contain a subject and a verb.

The dog barked all night long.

In this sentence, the dog is the doer. It is committing an action: barking. Therefore, the dog is the subject, and barked is the verb.

Sometimes it can be difficult to locate a subject:

On a hill under an old, gnarled tree howled a wolf.

If you aren't sure what the subject is, try and find the verb. In this case, the verb is howled. Now, you simply ask yourself, "What howled?" The answer: a wolf howled. Therefore, in this sentence, wolf is the subject and howled is the verb.

However, not all verbs are action verbs such as barked or howled. Verbs such as could or should are sometimes referred to as delayed action verbs, or modals. That is, they pass the action onto another word:

You should see me now. I could really take a nap.

In this case, both parts (should see, could take) are considered a verb.

And yet other kinds of verbs are used to link a subject to an adjective, such as to be (is, are, was, were) or seem.

I am ready to eat. You seem angry with me.

Both ready and angry are adjectives, used to describe the subjects I and you.

One confusing verb form is the passive voice. The purpose of the passive voice is to shift attention away from the subject to the action:

Mistakes were made. The bank was robbed.

In this case, both action words are considered verbs.

As previously noted, not all verbs are simply one word. Often, verbs contain a group of words. The present and past perfect tenses contain the word have/has followed by the past participle (have/has + present participle). Here are some examples of present participles:

Simple form simple past past participle

swim                           swam                           swum
think                            thought                        thought
ride                             rode                             ridden

The present perfect is used to denote an action in the past with ambiguity:

I've been to that restaurant before. He has known her for years.

The past perfect is formed by using the simple past of have (had) and combining it with the past participle as well. The past perfect is used to denote a past action in relation to another action at a different time in the past.

The team had won by five o'clock. The train had stopped by the time I woke up.

A tense used to discuss future events is called the future tense. The future tense is created by adding the simple form of a verb to will:

I will call you tomorrow. The bill will come Thursday.

Another common tense is called the present progressive tense. This tense is used to show how something is right now:

I am calling you. I'm thinking about it.

Here are some other progressive tenses:

Past progressive: I was sleeping when you called me.

Future progressive: They will be drivng when you call.

Past perfect progressive: I had been walking for ten minutes when I got tired.

Subordinators and Grammatical Subjects

Subordinating conjunctions, or subordinators, are certain words that we use to link ideas together in a sentence. Specifically,

the introduce subordinate clauses. A clause is subordinate if it relies on the rest of the sentence in order to be complete.

If I give you a dollar, will you buy me an ice-cream sandwich?

The fact that I was late appears to annoy you.

Here are some other common subordinators:

After if even though since when unless

Grammatical subjects (sometimes called relative pronouns), are words that also introduce subordinate clauses. However, the main difference between subordinators and grammatical subjects is that grammatical subjects are always followed directly by a verb (sometimes separated only by an adverb), while subordinators are followed by both a subject and a verb.

There's the rock that crashed through my window.

The woman who ran over our dog wants to apologize now.

Three common grammatical subjects: that, which, who.

Prepositions and Prepositional Phrases

The pen is on the table.

My car is in the garage.

Stop talking around the subject.

A prepositional phrase is simply a group of words beginning with the preposition and ending with the nearest noun after the preposition:

There's a big troll under this bridge.

The old log cabin stands between two old creaky oak trees.

The value of knowing how to identify a prepositional phrase is that no subjects exist within a prepositional phrase. So, if you place parentheses around all the prepositional phrases of a sentence, it limits the possibilities of what the subject (or subjects) actually is.

(in my house) (on my bed stand) (near the window) sits my wallet.