Curiosity in grammar

The following text is based on the original work of a Brazilian linguistic to whom I want to pay my tribute.


                                                          Curiosity in Grammar

                                                            Danger in definitions

                                                              What is the subject?

             You certainly already have listened, seen, read and, of course, have listened your teachers saying the subject is the term of the phrase about it is declared something.
What is the subject of the following sentence, then?

              John promised a golden watch to Mary.

             In according to the definition, you’ll assert surely John is the subject.  However, if I say your answer is not correct, no wonder that you will be surprised, because it was like this exactly we have learned. You’ll be more surprised if I say there are three elements in this sentence that we can state something about them: John, Mary and watch.

              1. About John is affirmed that a watch was offered for him;
              2. About Mary is affirmed that a watch was offered to her;
              3. About the watch is affirmed it was promised, and it is of gold.

              Therefore, in accordance with the definition over mentioned the sentence has three subjects. You have also learned that subject is that one practice action which is expressed by the verb. So, you based on this definition you’d be able to say the subject of the following sentences?

               1. John teaches their son to read.
               2. The boy takes a beating of his father-in-law.
               3. I am seeing an apple.

               There is no doubt you will say the subjects are John, Mary and I, respectively.
In relation the first sentence, you have gone yourself well, because there is no doubt John is the agent of the verbal process; who is practicing the action of the verb. Your answers for the other sentences were not correct.
                The boy who is taking a beat is practicing the action of “to beat up” really? Isn’t he really receiving this action? In this present case, the father-in-law is the subject, because he practices the action of “hit”, “beat”, and so on other synonym terms.
                In the third sentence, the pronoun “I” does not can be appointed as the subject, since there is no notion of activity expressed by the verb “to see”.  The eyes are parts of “I”, and they are suffering passively the action caused by the luminous rays of the light. In other words, according to this definition, it can not be appointed any subject for this sentence.
                So as you’ve seen, this analyze is basically founded on the semantic aspect.
                Be careful about definitions. They are dangerous. They are also hard, because it’s not easy to make definitions. It’s so difficult to make definitions that the famous Greek philosopher Aristotle would have said for his disciples that if he would found someone able for doing definition clearly he would follow him forever.


                The contents of this text is based on A Estrutura Morfo-Sintática do Português, of  our celebrated author José Rebouças Macambira, professor of Linguistic of the Universidade Federal of Ceará.