Subject and Verbs

Every complete sentence contains a subject and a

verb.

Subject

• The subject of a sentence is the person, place, thing, or idea that the sentence is about. The subject is a noun or pronoun.

• The subject is the “who or what” word in the sentence.

• Ask yourself, “who or what is the sentence about?”

• “Who or what is doing something in this sentence?”

Examples

• People applauded.• Gloria wrote the answers on

the board.

Verbs

• Many verbs express action; they tell what the subject is doing. You can find an action verb by asking, “What does the subject do?”• Examples:• People applauded.• Gloria wrote the answers on the

board.

Linking Verbs

• Linking verbs do not show action.• Linking Verbs: is, are, was, and were• These words join (or link) the

subject to something that is said about the subject.• Example: Gloria is a teacher.

Verbs

• Some verbs consist of more than one word- a helping verb plus the main verb.• Examples:• Gloria has written the answer on

the board.• The verb is has written.

Verbs

• The balloons were drifting slowly to earth.• The verb is were drifting.• The verb of a sentence never

begins with to. • Example:

Examples

• Gloria is going to write the answer on the board.• The verb of the sentence is is going.

It is not write or to write.• The balloons seemed to hang in the

air.• The verb of the sentence is seemed.

It is not hang or to hang.

List of Helping Verbs

• Forms of be: be, am, is, are, was, were, being, been• Forms of have: have, has, had• Forms of do: do , does, did• Forms of do: do does, did• Special Verbs: can, could, may, might,

must , ought (to) , shall, should, will, would

Practice

• Circle the subject and underline the verb.• 1. Dogs at the animal shelter wait for a

good home.• 2. The frozen fish on the counter

defrosted quickly.• 3. Two young boys from the

neighborhood were playing catch in the alley.

Further Practice

• 4. By the end of the day, we had sold between 350 and 400 tickets.

Prepositional Phrases

• A prepositional phrase is a group of words that begins with a preposition and ends with a noun.• The subject of a sentence is never

part of the prepositional phrase.

Common Prepositions

Examples of Prepositional Phrases• In the house• Of the world• From the bakery• With your permission• What is the subject in the following sentence?• A bunch of green grapes fell onto the supermarket

floor.• The answer is bunch, but many people would be

tempted to choose grapes. In this case, however, grapes is part of the prepositional phrase of green grapes, so it cannot be the subject.

Practice

• First, cross out the prepositional phrases in the following sentences. Then underline the subject.

• 1.The sick man, with the shaking hands, poured the pills from the brown bottle.

• 2. A student in the class fell asleep during the long lecture.

• 3. The blue berries in this pie are bitter.

Further Practice

• 4. Like her father, Abby adores basketball.• 5. The dust under your bed contains tiny

creatures.• 6. From my bedroom window, I can watch my

neighbor’s TV.• One of my best friends is a computer

programmer.

Preposition

• A word that connects a noun or a pronoun to another word in the sentence.• Example: A man in the bus was

snoring loudly.• In is a preposition. It connects the

noun bus to man.

Object of the Preposition

• The noun or pronoun that a preposition connects to another word in the sentence is called the object of the preposition.

Practice

• An ant was crawling up the teacher’s leg.• What is the proposition?• What is the prepositional phrase?• What is it connecting?• What is the object of the

preposition?

Further Practice

• The man with he black mustache left the restaurant quickly.• What is the preposition?• What is the prepositional phrase?• What is it connecting?• What is the object of the

preposition?

Further Practice

• The plant on the windowsill was a present from my mother.• What are the prepositions?• What are the prepositional phrases?• What is being connected ?• What are the objects?