The function of subject in English language/ Функция субъекта в английском языке

This literary techniquewas invented by Doyle due to the fact that he paid great attention to all small and almost imperceptible details. Reading about Sherlock Holmes, one might think that such a person once lived in the next street, and his genius abilities were only the capabilities of his brain, which he managed to develop to incredible sharpness. The heroes of Doyle’s novels are characters can be described as strong-willed, impetuous,ambitious,persistent, inquisitive and lively people. These qualities partly belong to the creator of immortal works himself.The life of the writer was filled with adventure and romance, he made an invaluable contribution to literature, wrote many stories, short stories, novels. He has worked in adventure, humor and science fiction genres.“The Hound of the Baskervilles” by Conan Doyle was written in 1902. This is the story of an investigation into the mysterious death of Sir Charles Baskerville, in whose family the legend of the devil dog has been passed down for many years. The events of the story take place in September - October 1889 in England, in the old estate of the Baskervilles.The book belongs to detective prose and is part of a cycle of novels and stories about the brilliant detective Sherlock Holmes. The story contains elements of Gothic prose.1.2Analysis of the subject function in the text of Arthur Conan Doyle's novel “The Hound of the Baskervilles”Quotes were selected for analysis in the text of the book. The sentences were analyzed taking into account the criteria described in Chapter 1.Now let us look on the examples from text depending on the grammatical meaning and determine how the subject is expressed in these sentences.The notional subjectIt can be personal or non-personal.As it was given in the theoretical part the personal subject denotes a living being, a lifeless thing, or an idea spoken about in the sentence. Here are the examples.“Holmes stretched out his hand for the manuscript and flattened it upon his knee”. The personal subject here denotes a living being, human with the certain proper name.“Three peopledid”. In this sentence we can see nominal phrase with a numeral as a subject.“Sir Henry Baskerville and Dr. Mortimer were ready upon the appointed day, and we started as arranged for Devonshire”. In first part of this sentence the personal subject denotes living beings, humans with the certain names. Two persons here are as a subject and predicate is following in plural. In the other part of the sentence the subject is a pronoun.‘I seem to have walked right into the thick of a dime novel,’ said our visitor”.A personal pronoun in the nominative casehere in direct speech of another subject.“Everything was now in an uproar, some calling for their pistols, some for their horses, and some for another flask of wine”. In this case, the subject is expressed by the pronoun.“The most of them would by no means advance, but three of them, the boldest, or it may be the most drunken, rode forward down the goyal”.Herewe can see the phrases with pronoun and numeral as the subject.“Someone seems to be very deeply interested in your movements”. In this case subject is expressed by infinitival construction and is a complex subject.“Mr. Holmes, they were the footprints of a gigantic hound!” The indefinite personal subject expressed by personal pronountheywe can see here.The name of non-personal subjectmay be replaced by it or they. Here are the examples.“His plan of campaign was beginning to be evident”. Thenon-personal subject in this sentence expressed by the phrase with the noun in the common case.“The appearance of our visitor was a surprise to me, since I had expected a typical country practitioner”. Here the non-personal subject expressed by the phrase with the noun in the common case, and in the other part of the sentence we can see the personal subject expressed by personal pronoun.“Being himself childless, it was his openly expressed desire that the whole country-side should, within his own lifetime, profit by his good fortune, and many will have personal reasons for bewailing his untimely end”. In the first part of this complex sentence we can see non-personal subject expressed by the gerundial phrase then refined by it. And in the other parts there arenon-personal subject expressed by the phrase with a noun in a common case and personal subject expressed by pronoun.“A square balustraded gallery ran round the top of the old hall, approached by a double stair”. Here the non-personal subject expressed by the nominal phrase with the noun.“Something brown was rolling and tossing among the green sedges”. The non-personal subject here is expressed by pronoun with adjective.The formal subjectThis type of subject has a function of a placeholder and just filling the position of the subject. And as we remember from the theoretical part there are two such position-fillers: it and there. The formal it-subject can be impersonal and introductory. There-subject also applies to the formal introductory subjects. The following are examples of the different types of the formal subjectfrom the studied text.“It was at my advice that Sir Charles was about to go to London”. The formal subject it is introductory here, because it introduces the notional subject expressed by a predicative clause.“It is very bewildering”. This is impersonal sentence with impersonal it-subject.“There is no reason whatever to suspect foul play, or to imagine that death could be from any but natural causes”. The notional subject introduced by there expresses the existence of a non-person denoted by the subject (noun in negative).“There were indications that Sir Charles had stood for some little time here”. The notional subject introduced by there expresses the existence of a non-person denoted by the subject (a noun in plural). And second subject in other part is a notional personal expressed by a proper noun.“There’s a light in a woman’s eyes that speaks louder than words”. Here the subject is expressed by a noun phrase denoting an inseparable unit.“So there is one of our small mysteries cleared up”. And in this sentence noun phrase as the subject denoting an indefinite amount of something.“There is nothingso deceptive as the distance of a light upon a pitch-dark night, andsometimes the glimmer seemed to be far away upon the horizon and sometimes it might have been within a few yardsof us”. Here used negative pronoun for expression of the existential sentence, and in other part we can see notional personal subject expressed by the noun.“There were several gentlemen who knew my sad history and united to help me”.Here the noun phrasecan be seen as the subject denoting an indefinite amount of something.Let us give examples from the text of the novel, dividing the subjects by parts of speech, with the help of which they can be expressed.Expressed by a noun in a common case or a nominal phrase with the noun.“The sun had set and dusk was settling over the moor”.Here are the notional non-personal subjects expressed by nouns in a common case.“The tragedy was still black enough, but this man had at least deserved death by the laws of his country”. In this sentence subjects are nominal personal (the tragedy is an abstract notion) expressed by nouns.“A figure was approaching us over the moor, and I saw thedull red glow of a cigar”.Here is the notional non-personal subject (a figure) expressed by noun in a common case.“My friend bowed his compliments”.In this case the subject is notional personal and expressed by noun with possessive pronoun.“This poor wretch was dressed in your clothes”.The subject in this sentence is a nominal phrase with the noun.“The boy returned with a telegram, which Holmes handedto me”.Here arenotional personal subjects expressed by noun in a common case and proper name of the person.“Sherlock Holmes shrugged his shoulders”.The subject in this sentence is a notional personal expressed by proper name of the person.Expressed by pronoun in the nominative case.“I am investigating the circumstances which attended the death of the late Sir Charles Baskerville”.Here is the notional personal subject expressed by pronoun in a nominative case.“He had uttered a cry and bent over the body”. Here is alsothe notional personal subject expressed by pronoun in a nominative case.“You have withheld what the connectionis between these events”.The notional personal subject expressed by pronoun in a nominative case.“She glanced at them, and then looked up at us with theset, rigid face of a desperate woman”.The notional personal subject expressed by pronoun in a nominative case.“You have confessed that you asked Sir Charles to be atthe gate at ten o’clock”.The notional personal subject expressed by pronoun in a nominative case.“We did not drive up to the door but got downnear the gate of the avenue”.The notional personal subject expressed by pronoun in a nominative case.“They sat with their profiles towards me on either side of the round table”.The notional personal subject expressed by pronoun in a nominative case.Expressed by a numeral or a nominal phrase with a numeral.“One of them was suddenly shut off”.Here is the notional personal subject expressed by a nominal phrase with a numeral.“One towel passed round the throat and was secured at the back of the pillar”.Here is the notionalnon-personal subject expressed by a nominal phrase with a numeral.“The two of them were destined to travel together round the world before Sir Henry had become once more the hale, hearty man that he had been before he became master of that ill-omened estate.The notional personal subject expressed by a nominal phrase with a numeral.“His first act was to establish himself asnear to his ancestral home as he could, and his second wasto cultivate a friendship with Sir Charles Baskerville andwith the neighbours”.Here are the notionalnon-personal subjects expressed by a nominal phrase with a numeral.“The one is whether any crime has been committed at all; the secondis, what is the crime and how was it committed?”Here are the notionalnon-personal subjects expressed by the numerals.“Then the two gentlemenpassed us, walking, and we followed down Baker Street andalong”.In this sentence the notional personal subject expressed by a nominal phrase with a numeral.Expressed by an infinitive or an infinitive phrase.“To hear a hound upon the moor would not work a hard man like this convict into such a paroxysm of terror that he would risk recapture by screaming wildly for help”.Here is the subject expressed by an infinitive phrase.“In a modest way I have combated evil, but to take on the Father of Evil himself would, perhaps, be too ambitious a task”.Here is also the subject expressed by an infinitive phrase.Expressed by a gerund or a gerundial phrase.“Being himself childless, it was his openly expressed desire that the whole country-side should, within his own lifetime, profit by his good fortune, and many will have personal reasons for bewailing his untimely end”.Here is the subject expressed by a gerundial phraserefined by pronoun it then.Expressed by a phrase.In all examples below the phrases as subjects are highlighted in bold and it can be seen that the whole phrase are going before the part beginning with the auxiliary verb (was).“His reason for attempting this special line of business was that he had struck up an acquaintance with a consumptive tutor upon the voyage home, and that he had used this man’s ability to make the undertaking a success”.“Every minute that white woolly plain which covered one half of the moor was drifting closer and closer to the house”.“The use of artificial means to make the creature diabolical was a flash ofgenius upon his part”.Expressed by a clause.“The more outre and grotesque an incident is the more carefully it deserves to be examined, and the very point which appears to complicate a case is, when duly considered and scientifically handled, the one which is most likely to elucidate it”.Here is the composite sentence and the subject expressed by a clause is in the second part of its compound-complex structure.CONCLUSION OF THE SECOND CHAPTERIn the second chapter of the work, “Analysis of the subject function on the example of the book “The Hound of the Baskervilles” by Arthur Conan Doyle attempts were made to analyze the text of the book. Examples of sentences with different types of subject are chosen and explanations are given taking into account the theoretical basis from the first chapter of the work.In the process of analyzing the text of Arthur Conan Doyle’s novel, it was found that the vast majority of sentences contain subjects expressed by pronouns (more than 50%), more often personal ones. Less often can be found subjects expressed by nouns (but still rather often) in the common case or a nominal phrase with the noun. In third place are the subjects, expressed by numerals or nominal phrases with a numeral and infinitives or an infinitive phrases. It is very rare to find examples of sentences with subjects, expressed by gerunds, phrases or clauses.The text contains more characters’ dialogues and fewer descriptions. To a certain extent, this leads to the use of mainly personal pronouns in dialogues and narratives of events, as well as proper names.When analyzing the text from the point of view of the grammatical meaning of the subject, the use of all types of the subject as notional and formal was found. When compared by frequency of use, in most cases notionalsubjects can be seenmore often and there-subjects as well.CONCLUSIONMore than three hundred different definitions of the sentence confront the person who undertakes to deal with the structure of English utterances. And it seems that no definition of the sentence has been found so far, which would completely satisfy all linguists. Among various definitions given to the sentence the most general one is the following: Sentence is the minimal syntactic structure used in speech communication, distinguished by predication and built up of words according to a definite syntactic pattern.The subject is one of the two main parts of the sentence. It denotes the thingwhose action or characteristic is expressed by the predicate. It is not dependent on any other part of the sentence. It may be expressed by different parts of speech. The most frequently used: nouns in the common case, a personal pronoun in the nominative case, a demonstrative pronoun occasionally, a substantivised adjective, an infinitive, a gerund and a numeral. It may also be expressed by a phrase.The categorical function of the subject is to denote the carrier of the predicative feature transmitted by the predicate. The obligatory two-part nature of the English verb sentence makes the subject an essential constituent element of the sentence.The relative function of the subject is that it is the initial element in the sequential syntagmatic development of the sentence, constituting the left-side environment of the verb-predicate, which is opposed to its right-side environment, primarily the object or objects.The first, theoretical chapter 1 of this work, “The function of subject in English sentences” analyzes the material on the theoretical grammar section in terms of syntax and related to the topic of the sentence. The concepts of a sentence, parts of a sentence and the role of the subject in the English language are considered. The ways of its expression in sentences are shown.In the second chapter of the work, “Analysis of the subject function on the example of the book “The Hound of the Baskervilles” by Arthur Conan Doyle attempts were made to analyze the text of the book. Examples of sentences with different types of subject are chosen and explanations are given taking into account the theoretical basis from the first chapter of the work.In the process of analyzing the text of Arthur Conan Doyle’s novel, it was found that the vast majority of sentences contain subjects expressed by pronouns (more than 50%), more often personal ones. Less often can be found subjects expressed by nouns (but still rather often) in the common case or a nominal phrase with the noun. In third place are the subjects, expressed by numerals or nominal phrases with a numeral and infinitives or an infinitive phrases. It is very rare to find examples of sentences with subjects, expressed by gerunds, phrases or clauses.The text contains more characters’ dialogues and fewer descriptions. 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