Questions: Basic Sentence Structure: Subject and Predicate

Question 1

In the sentence 'One of the students forgot her homework,' what is the simple subject?

• A. students
• B. One
• C. homework
• D. her

Answer: (B)

'One' is the simple subject — it is the noun that performs the action of forgetting. 'Students' is the object of the preposition 'of' and is part of a prepositional phrase modifying 'One.' This is the classic prepositional-phrase trap: the nearest noun before the verb is not always the subject. The test is to find the verb ('forgot') and ask 'Who forgot?' — the answer is 'One,' not 'students.'

Question 2

The predicate of a sentence consists mainly of the main verb and hardly anything else.

• T. True
• F. False

Answer: False

The simple predicate is the main verb alone, but the complete predicate includes the verb plus all words related to it — objects, complements, adverbials. In 'She quickly finished the long report,' the simple predicate is 'finished' and the complete predicate is 'quickly finished the long report.' Both are valid and useful concepts, but they are not the same thing.

Question 3

How would you identify the subject in the inverted question 'Are the books on the shelf yours?'

Model answer: Find the main verb first ('Are'), then rearrange the sentence into statement form: 'The books on the shelf are yours.' The subject is 'books' (or 'The books' as the complete subject). In questions, the subject appears between the auxiliary verb and the main verb, which is why rearranging helps.

The strategy of restating a question as a declarative sentence is the reliable method for finding subjects in inverted word order. 'Books' performs the state described by 'are,' making it the subject. 'Shelf' is again a prepositional object and a common distractor.