Page 589 - Wordsmith A Guide to College Writing
P. 589
Practice 12-4 Recognizing Verbs and
Subjects
Find the verb in each sentence below and double-underline it. Then
find the subject by asking “Who or what _______________?”
Underline the subject once.
1. Casablanca is Adrienne’s favorite movie.
2. Exhaustion showed on Hank’s face.
3. Ophelia’s college diploma hung on the wall of her office.
4. Dust clung stubbornly to the computer screen.
5. Tracy drove to the post office and mailed her package.
Recognizing Prepositional Phrases
A subject will not be part of a prepositional phrase. In many
sentences, prepositional phrases intervene between subject and verb.
The rim of the glass is chipped.
When we pick out the subject of the verb by asking “What is chipped?”
it is tempting to say, “The glass is chipped.” But glass cannot be the
subject of the verb in this sentence. Grammatically, it already has a
job: It is the object of the preposition. The subject of this sentence is
rim. To avoid mistakes in picking out the subject of the sentence,
