A Dictionary of Linguistics and Phonetics David Crystal

subject 461
subgenre (n.)
subgesture (n.)
sub-group (n.)
see genre
see gesture
see family
subjacency (n.) A term used in extended standard theory and governmentbinding
theory to refer to a type of condition which restricts the application
of a transformational rule; it is the main principle of bounding theory.
The subjacency condition states that a constituent cannot be moved (in any
single application) across more than one bounding node. For example, in the
sentence The story that [[the quarrel about pay NP ] was wrong S ] is irrelevant,
the brackets mark the place of the constituent boundaries np and s. To move the
phrase about pay to the right of wrong is possible, because only one bounding
node has been crossed; but it is not possible to move this phrase to the right of
irrelevant, according to the subjacency condition, because then both the NP and
S nodes would be crossed. It has been argued that it is possible to subsume
several earlier island constraints under this condition, which is claimed to be
more general and natural as a consequence.
subject (n.) (S, sub, SUB, Subj, SUBJ) A term used in the analysis of grammatical
functions to refer to a major constituent of sentence or clause
structure, traditionally associated with the ‘doer’ of an action, as in The cat bit
the dog. The oldest approaches make a twofold distinction in sentence analysis
between subject and predicate, and this is still common, though not always in
this terminology; other approaches distinguish subject from a series of other
elements of structure (object, complement, verb, adverbial, in particular).
Linguistic analyses have emphasized the complexity involved in this notion,
distinguishing, for example, the grammatical subject from the underlying or
logical subject of a sentence, as in The cat was chased by the dog, where The cat
is the grammatical and the dog the logical subject. Not all subjects, moreover,
can be analysed as doers of an action, as in such sentences as Dirt attracts flies
and The books sold well. The definition of subjects in terms of surface grammatical
features (using word-order or inflectional criteria) is usually relatively
straightforward, but the specification of their function is more complex,
and has attracted much discussion (e.g. in relational grammar). In generative
grammar, subject is sometimes defined as the NP immediately dominated by S.
While NP is the typical formal realization of subject, other categories can have
this function, e.g. clause (S-bar), as in That oil floats on water is a fact, and PP,
as in Between 6 and 9 will suit me. The term is also encountered in such
contexts as raising and the specified-subject condition.
In the study of inflected languages, subjective may be used as an alternative to
nominative; e.g. in English the contrast between subject and object forms of
pronouns (e.g. he ~ him) is sometimes referred to as a distinction between
subjective and objective case. The term ‘subjective genitive’ is also used (as in
the playing of the musicians = ‘musicians play’), in contrast with the objective
genitive (as in the building of the house = ‘X built the house’). See also complement,
raising.