GolfHos

Contrary to the brave facade I manage to portray for you, I actually struggle with these things.  I have(and will need lots more help to come esp. in math)trouble with some of the stuff Maddie(8 y/o) brings home.  Some of it is just brain fade after a long day, some of it is just locked way back in the brain, and who the hell remembers where that key is;  but most of it is I really ain't no better than dubya, and hell that debacle with Quayle......I don't know what he was even spellin' cause that word,(and a lot of others) ends in E R S!

Any Hoo.

Subject.  Does the subject have more than one word?  Can it? or always not?

exempli gratia

1. A fire captain has an important job.  (is it fire captain, or just captain)?

2. The little dog barks at Allie  (All 3, or just dog)?


How do you tell with 2?

She gives him a biscuit. 

Thanks.

Oy Vey, it's only 3rd grade.

It's been a mighty long time since I had to identify parts of speech or diagram sentences, but here's my stab at it:


"Fire" is an adjective describing the subject "captain."


"little" is an adjective, "dog" is the subject, "Allie" is the object in the prepositional phrase


"She" is the subject, "he" is the object.


You're welcome. I wish I could guarantee that I am correct.

the subject is the whole noun phrase, actually

This is true. I was attempting to diagram the sentence in my head and was over thinking it. The subjects in the first two examples are "fire captain" and "little dog."

Damn, it's all coming back to me now, I am still breaking it down too much. We're not dealing with parts of speech (nouns, verbs, adjectives, etc), we're dealing with simple subjects and predicates. The subjects are actually "The little dog" and "A fire captain."   [sm_banghead]

Yeah, sorry, but that's where I still have prob.s



So, the subject can be more than 1 word?  Looks like it. [sm_banghead]

stroh: yes

example


You and I are posting in this thread.

 ;)

stroh - It depends on whether you are looking for simple subjects, compound sbjects, simple predicates, compound predicates, nouns, verbs, etc...

My daughter is in 2nd grade, here is a website her teacher uses. I linked the specific page for subject and predicate.

http://library.thinkquest.org/2947/subjectsandpredicates.html


Here's the main page:
http://library.thinkquest.org/2947/index.html


Hope this helps.

Ah Ha.  Thank you!  I got the deal between the sub. and the pred., but then like spacey, I was breaking it down, too much, and oh fook man, i was gettin' frustrated.

No problem, I once had the pleasure of teaching middle school English. Fortunately, we spent very little time diagramming sentences.