Basic Clause Patterns(8) Whenever you feel like raking those leaves, go ahead and do it,
because I won’t rake them.What is the topic of this sentence? Raking the leaves? If so, it isn’t a subject.
If only subjects can qualify as topics, then either you or I or both must be its
topics. Can a sentence have two topics? The traditional definition doesn’t say.
Is every subject a topic? The traditional definition doesn’t say. If every sub-
ject is not a topic, how do you identify the topic? The traditional definition
doesn’t say. In short, one cannot identify topics of sentences out of context,
and when we examine sentences in context, the topics may well turn out not
to be subjects. Thus the traditional discourse-based criterion for establishing a
grammatical category reflects a mistaken notion of grammatical criteria. And
it just doesn’t work.
Exercise
Using only the traditional definition of subject, try to identify the
whole subjects of the following sentences:
a. Oscar closed the door.
b. Amanda helped herself to the nectarines.
c. One usually takes a long time to recover from a back injury.
d. No one understands me.
e. Advantage was taken of the loophole by the cabinet ministers.
f. It is clear that power breeds corruption.
g. It rained yesterday.
h. There will be more rain tomorrow.
What kinds of problems did you run into? Besides the definition, what
assumptions did you have to make?
Identifying a subject
In this section we present a formal characterization of subject to replace the
definition based on discourse function. We can provide a more accurate and
more general characterization by using the position, agreement patterns, and
case markings of subjects in clauses. Consider the following sentences:
(9) a. I am at home.
b. You are at home.
c. He/she/it is at home.
d. We/you/they are at home.