subject (n.) (S, sub, SUB, Subj, SUBJ)

A term used in the analysis of GRAMMATICAL FUNCTIONS to refer to a major CONSTITUENT of SENTENCE or CLAUSE structure, traditionally associated with the ‘doer’ of an action, as in The cat bit the dog. The oldest approaches make a twofold distinction in sentence analysis between subject and PREDICATE, and this is still common, though not always in this terminology; other approaches distinguish subject from a series of other elements of STRUCTURE (OBJECT, COMPLEMENT, VERB, ADVERBIAL, in particular). Linguistic analyses have emphasized the complexity involved in this notion, distinguishing, for example, the grammatical subject from the UNDERLYING or logical subject of a sentence, as in The cat was chased by the dog, where The cat is the grammatical and the dog the logical subject. Not all subjects, moreover, can be analyzed as doers of an action, as in such sentences as Dirt attracts flies and The books sold well. The definition of subjects in terms of SURFACE grammatical features (using WORD-ORDER or INFLECTIONAL criteria) is usually relatively straightforward, but the specification of their function is more complex, and has attracted much discussion (e.g. in RELATIONAL GRAMMAR). In GENERATIVE grammar, subject is sometimes defined as the NP immediately DOMINATED by S. While NP is the typical formal realization of subject, other categories can have this function, e.g. clause (S-bar), as in That oil floats on water is a fact, and PP, as in Between 6 and 9 will suit me. The term is also encountered in such contexts as RAISING and the SPECIFIED-SUBJECT CONDITION.

In the study of inflected languages, subjective may be used as an alternative to NOMINATIVE; e.g. in English the contrast between subject and object forms of PRONOUNS (e.g. he ~ him) is sometimes referred to as a distinction between subjective and objective case. The term ‘subjective GENITIVE’ is also used (as in the playing of the musicians = ‘musicians play’), in contrast with the OBJECTIVE genitive (as in the building of the house = ‘X built the house’).