Summary About Subject, Verb, Complement and Modifier

1.     Subject

The subject is a word or phrase that serves as actors, subjects, or causes of action. Generally subject position at the beginning of the sentence, but there is also a subject that is not at the beginning of the sentence. There are two kinds of subjects in the English language are:

a.       Subject Simple

Simple subject is the subject that consists of a single subject. This could be a noun (noun), pronoun (pronoun), gerund, infinitive, and clauses. Example sentences for the five subjects this simple form you can see below.

1.      The noun as a subject = I write an article. (I wrote an article)

2.      pronoun as subject = She studies English with her children. (She is learning English with his children)

3.      gerund as subject = Writing in a coffee shop is one of my tactics to increase of my productivity. (Writing in the coffee shop is one of my tactics to increase my productivity)

4.      infinitive as subject = To fly requires skill. (Fly requires skill)

5.      Clause as a subject = What she said was valuable. (What he said helpful)

b.      Subject Combined

The combined subject is a subject that has more than one subject. Example sentences mengadung subject of this type is as follows:

1.      My wife and I can not Attend the workshop. [My wife and I could not attend the workshop.

2.       Verb

Verbs are a way of life

A verb, in the English language, is used to describe an action (talk), an event (crumble), or a state (rest). 

Here is an example of verbs at work:

The dog will run to his owner and play in the park.

Both "run" and "play" are verbs, as they are things that the dog is doing.

Transitive and intransitive verbs

A transitive verb is used when someone does something to an object. This means that the sentence must have an object. For example, "Bobby finished his homework." In this sentence, Bobby, the subject, did something to his homework—he finished it. "Homework" is thus the direct object in the sentence. On the other hand, intransitive verbs don't require direct objects. For example, "Sandra will sleep until noon." The verb "sleep" has no object. Verbs of motion are further examples of intransitive verbs, e.g., "She ran" or "We drove."

There's no need to be tense about verbs

The proofreaders at Scribendi recognize 18 possible verb tenses. This may sound intimidating, but unless you're a linguist, you'll probably never even notice you're using them! The three tenses that are most commonly referred to are present, past, and future:

Present: I drink.

Past: I drank.

Future: I will drink.

A present tense verb is used to describe something you are currently doing. The past tense is used to describe something you have done, and the future tense denotes your intention to do something later.

It is important to use the correct tense when you are writing. If you are writing in the present tense, your verbs must reflect this.

If your narrative takes place in the past, you must use the past tense. Remember, when writing in the past tense, you must conjugate (modify) your verbs from present to past. This is seen in the example above. In the present tense, you drink, but in the past tense, you drank (drink has been conjugated, or modified, to reflect the past tense).

Irregular verbs

You may be wondering why, when drink moved from present to past tense, its spelling changed. This is due to one of the trickiest things in the English language: the irregular verb. There are more than 370 irregular verbs in modern English, most of which occur when a verb is conjugated into the past tense. An irregular verb is one that cannot be conjugated by adding –es, –ed, or –ing to it.

Here is an example of a regular verb compared with an irregular verb:

Regular  Verb:        "Laugh"		Irregular  Verb:      "Dig"
Present:	I laugh	Present:	I dig
Past:	I laughed	Past:	I dug
Future:	I will laugh	Future:	I will dig

As you can see, to conjugate the regular verb, our English proofreaders need only place an –ed at the end, leaving the word otherwise unchanged. To conjugate the irregular verb, however, we added nothing to the end, but rather changed the spelling of the original word. This concept is often difficult for native English speakers to comprehend, so one can only imagine the difficulties that English as a second language students must encounter! Common errors occur when students fail to recognize these special rules, resulting in incorrect verb usage, such as "I digged a hole!" or "I drinked all of my milk!"

3.       Complement

Complement is a complement of the verb. It's like the subject is usually in the form of a noun or noun phrase. But, in general complement follow the verb form of the sentence when the sentence is active. And for the record, the sentence in the English language does not always need a complement. Then complement can not start with a preposition. The characteristics of complement is a complement, can answer the question of what or Whom. To be more clear please see the example below.

Example:

Bill bought a new car yesterday?	(What did Bill buy?)
Lian was reading a book.	(What was Lian reading?)

4.       Modifier

Modifier is a word, phrase and clause in the English language that has a function as an adjective (adjective) or adverb (adverb) which explains another word or group of words. In English, the word or group of words that are known by the Head explained. Here's the explanation:

-          Function as an adjective (can be as simple adjective, adjective phrase, clause, participle or infinitive): explains noun

-          Function as an adverb (can be as simple adverb, adverb phrase, clause, prepositional phrase or infinitive): explain verb, adjective or another adverb.

Modifier appearing before the Head called the Premodifiers, while the modifier to appear after Head called the Postmodifiers. Below is an example of premodifiers and postmodifiers sentence with the word 'detective' as Head:

-          Premodifiers

Hercule Poirot is a famous detective

-          Postmodifiers

The detective with big glasses solves the most Baffling cases

Example:

a.       As an adjective

-          She found a chocolate put on my bag

'Put on my bag' (participial phrase) to function as an adjective that describes 'chocholate' (noun)

b.      As an adverb

-          He plays the violin so beautifully

'So beautifully' (adverb phrase) serves to explain 'plays violin' (verb)