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#62896 03/30/02 12:58 AM
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Realizing that this will be of no help whatsoever, the subject is what.-faldage

Cantankerousness is the "what" that is the matter with me. -a paraphrase of the words of tsuwm

Dear soojin,

Every living fiber of my being wants to agree with the good Doc Bill, with Jackie, with Mr. Troves, and with the wonderful Missus of troy. They are nice people, almost like kinfolk, but on the matter of this subject their observations are about as useless as teats on a boar hog.

Instead I am forced to side with the likes of tsuwm and Mister Faldage.

When two entities are connected by "is", the subject of the sentence is indeterminable, and if one chooses, he chooses arbitrarily. "Is", you see, equals "equal". And no, Monica, it doesn't depend on what Bill meant by "is".

A) What is the matter with you?
B) What is the subject of (A)?

soojin,
Just remove the question mark, then (B) becomes the answer to (A) and "what" is also the answer to (B)

Interchanging the nouns around "is" is only a feel-good method to make you think that you have thought.

Forget "interrogative pronouns" unless you are taking a grammar test. Then forget them quickly after, if you are.

Good Luck.


#62897 03/30/02 03:57 AM
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He said to me, "What is the matter with you?"(direct narration)
˘ĦHe asked me what the matter with me was. (indirect narration)

Is it right?



#62898 03/30/02 12:44 PM
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(A)He asked me what the matter with me was. (indirect narration)

That works but a little better might be:
(B)He asked me what was the matter with me. (indirect narration)

Word order is pretty important in English but not so important that we can't mess with it a little. To me, (B) sounds a little better than (A).


#62899 03/30/02 11:26 PM
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dr. bill, surely you realize that I was not intending to tease you? My point is simply to question your implicit assumption that the grammatical subject of a sentence remains unchanged when the sentence is restructure as you have done.

Frankly, I believe that assumption is incorrect, and one could substitute any other example using "is" in the sense of "equivalency" -- but an example using the terms figuratively, rather than literally, is probably a bit more clear.

#62900 03/31/02 12:34 AM
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the subject is what.

Agreeing with faldage, but not finding anything on-line directly on point, I note the following:

Achilles is a lion. --- Who is a lion?
Achilles is the subject of the former sentence. http://www.dictionary.com/doctor/faq/l/linkingverb.html
Why should one think the subject somehow "shifts" in the latter sentence?

What is your phone number?
"your phone number" is the subject complement -- implying that it is not the subject.
http://www.uottawa.ca/academic/arts/writcent/hypergrammar/adjectve.html

The same site confirms that the "subject complement" is not the "subject": "A linking verb connects a subject to a subject complement which identifies or describes the subject"
http://www.uottawa.ca/academic/arts/writcent/hypergrammar/link.html#linking verb


#62901 03/31/02 12:45 AM
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Just heard from the ultimate arbiter in matters such as this and she says that the subject is what.


#62902 03/31/02 03:41 AM
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Just heard from the ultimate arbiter in matters such as this and she says that the subject is what.

What's on first?


#62903 03/31/02 03:44 AM
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Who's on second!


#62904 03/31/02 12:09 PM
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Ah, poor, poor, soojin. What a bunch of smart alecks we are on this board!


#62905 03/31/02 01:22 PM
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matter is the predicate nominative


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