The subject of a sentence identifies what the sentence is about. The simple subject consists of one or more nouns (36b) or pronouns (36c); the complete subject consists of the simple subject with all its modifiers.

Baseball is a summer game.

A compound subject contains two or more simple subjects joined with a coordinating conjunction (and, but, or) or a correlative conjunction (both . . . and, either . . . or, neither . . . nor, not only . . . but also). (See 36g.)

Baseball and softball developed from cricket.

Both baseball and softball developed from cricket.

Positioning subjects

The subject usually comes before the predicate (37a), but sometimes writers reverse this order to achieve a particular effect.

Up to the plate stepped Casey.

In questions, the subject appears between the helping verb and the main verb.

Can statistics lie?

How did the manager turn these players into a winning team?

In sentences beginning with there or here followed by a form of the verb be, the subject always follows the verb. There and here are never the subject.

There was no joy in Mudville.

Using explicit subjects

While many languages can omit a sentence subject, English very rarely allows this. You might write Responsible for analyzing data on a résumé, but in most varieties of spoken and written English, you must state the subject explicitly. In fact, with only a few exceptions, all clauses in English must have an explicit subject.

English even requires a kind of “dummy” subject to fill the subject position in certain kinds of sentences.

It is raining.

There is a strong wind.

Imperative sentences (37f), which express requests or commands, are an exception to the rule of explicit subjects; the subject you is usually implied rather than stated.

(You) Keep your eye on the ball.