Question

What is the subject and predicate in each sentence? Why?
1) The bunnies like to play in the sunshine, and they will often come right up to you if you offer them something to eat.
2) The issue that I want to discuss with you is difficult to talk about because it is so contentious.
3) In the middle of the movie, the man who was sitting in front of me stood up and he refused to sit down again.

Answer 1

Hint: Subject is a noun or pronoun that is being described, discussed or dealt with in a sentence. It answers ‘what’ or ‘whom’ the sentence is about. While the predicate part of the sentence elaborates more on the subject i.e. tells about the subject or about the action of the subject.

Complete answer:
Let us understand some rules that will help us in identifying subject and predicate in the given sentences:
- The noun that initiates the action is the subject.
- The part of the sentence which contains the action, forms the predicate part. It also contains the object of the sentence. The noun that receives action is the object.
- Subjects that have only one word/one noun are simple subjects whereas, the predicates that tell about a single action are simple predicates. Both simple forms do not have any modifiers.
- Both compound subject and predicate have modifiers. Compound subjects may have more than one word/one noun whereas the compound predicate will have more than one action.

1) In the first sentence ‘and’ and ‘if’ are conjunctions. So, we can divide the sentence into three different clauses. a) The bunnies like to play in the sunshine. b) They will often come right up to you. c) you offer them something to eat. It is a compound subject-predicate sentence.
Subjects - a) The bunnies b) They c) You
Predicates - a) like to play in the sunshine b)will often come right up to you c)offer them something to eat

2) In the second sentence ‘because’ is conjunction. So, we can divide the sentences into 2 clauses a) The issue that I want to discuss with you is difficult to talk about. b) it is so contentious. It is a compound subject-predicate sentence.
Subjects - a) The issue b) it
Predicates - a) that I want to discuss with you is difficult to talk about b) is so contentious

3) In the third sentence ‘and’ is the conjunction. So, we can divide the sentences into 2 clauses a) In the middle of the movie, the man who was sitting in front of me stood up. b) He refused to sit down again.
Subjects- a) The man b) He
Predicates - a) was sitting in front of me stood up. b)refused to sit down again.

Note:
- Only complete sentences have subject and predicate and subject-verb agreement is compulsory in the sentence to make it grammatically correct.
- Also compound sentences must not be confused with complex sentences because compound sentences have all independent clauses, but complex sentences are a mix of one independent and subordinate clauses.