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"Years of bitter dispute about whether to progress with the eradication led to a poll..."

I'm not sure whether "years" or "dispute" should be subject.

timothycat
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    The subject is the whole noun phrase years of bitter dispute about whether to progress with the eradication. – BillJ Nov 20 '17 at 07:25
  • @BillJ - That could be shortened to Years of bitter dispute, no? – J.R. Nov 20 '17 at 09:02
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    @J.R. Yes, it could, but all that would do is change the subject and the meaning. The "about" phrase contains an important subordinate interrogative clause (embedded question), i.e. "whether to progress with the eradication". The meaning is roughly "Years of bitter dispute about the answer to the question 'should we/they progress the eradication? led to a poll.'" – BillJ Nov 20 '17 at 10:03
  • Thank you, guys.I understand that the whole noun phrase should be regarded as the subject of the sentence. But what if, as J.R. suggested, it is shortened as "years of bitter dispute", then which is the subject？ – timothycat Nov 20 '17 at 10:53
  • If that were the case, “Years of bitter dispute” is the subject. – J.R. Nov 20 '17 at 11:21
  • Make up your mind. Do you want the subject to be Years of bitter dispute about whether to progress with the eradication or Years of bitter dispute? In this case, all words occurring before the verb "led" will constitute the subject. – BillJ Nov 20 '17 at 13:38
  • I think the subject might just be 'dispute', and the rest of all are the modifiers, indicating what kind of dispute. So, the main clause is "dispute led to a poll". – dan Nov 20 '17 at 13:50
  • @dan: Eons of dripping water had eroded the stone.Hordes of locusts had destroyed the crops. A series of after-shocks damaged the town further The subjects are not simply "water" and "locusts" and "after-shocks". – TimR Nov 20 '17 at 14:02
  • @dan That's silly. The subject is not just "dispute" but the entire NP consisting of the head and all its dependents such as modifiers complements and determiners - it's all of these together that comprise the constituent functioning as subject, which is Years of bitter dispute about whether to progress with the eradication. (btw the main clause is the entire sentence.) – BillJ Nov 20 '17 at 14:23
  • Different languages have different grammar rules. In my mother language, when we analyze/identify the main clause, we just make it as concise as possible. Remove those modifiers and determiners, but keep complements perhaps. – dan Nov 20 '17 at 16:20
  • Perhaps, @dan, but I don't think it is fair to the OP if we go off at a tangent and supply answers based on another language. After all, ELL is about the English language. – BillJ Nov 20 '17 at 17:02
  • @BillJ, I agree with you. But that's what I thought for English too. I only know this rule until you guys say it. Anyways, I learnt it here. Thanks! – dan Nov 21 '17 at 00:27

3 Answers3

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Years of bitter dispute about [whether to progress with the eradication] led to a poll.

Here's a simplified tree diagram of the sentence. The head of the subject NP is "years", and the bracketed whether element above is a subordinate interrogative infinitival clause (embedded question) functioning as complement of "about".

Note that the phrase-level constituents are complements, not modifiers

BillJ
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  • What would be your thought if the question is asking for a simple subject? thanks ! – dan Nov 21 '17 at 07:06
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It looks like you're asking about the simple subject, the keyword of the phrase that is the complete subject. 

It's "years".  Those years led to a poll. 

In contrast, "dispute" is the simple object of the preposition "of". 

Questions like this one are often related to subject/verb agreement.  In the example sentence, this hardly matters.  Both "years led" and "dispute led" agree.  However, "years do lead" and "dispute does lead" show a difference in agreement, which is reflected in "years of dispute do lead". 

As a rule of thumb, you should be able to remove all the modifiers in a subject without removing this keyword: 

Years [ of bitter dispute [ about whether to progress [ with the eradication ] ] ] led to a poll

We ignore "with the eradication" because it modifies "to progress". We ignore "about whether to progress . . ." because it modifies "dispute". We ignore "of bitter dispute . . ." because it modifies "years".

Gary Botnovcan
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  • OP is not just asking about the head of the subject, but about the subject as a whole. You could have said that there needs to be agreement between the head of the subject and the verb rather than "ignore" all other subject components. – Gustavson Nov 21 '17 at 00:01
  • No. OP clearly asked about an individual word, not some phrase as a whole. In other words, the simple subject, not the complete subject. – Gary Botnovcan Nov 21 '17 at 02:51
  • I think the simple subject should be 'dispute' logically, instead of 'years'. Take the example in one of the comments above: "A series of after-shocks damaged the town further." I don't think you would take 'series' as the simple subject, but after-shocks, right? Similarly, in this case, the simple subject should be dispute, shouldn't it? – dan Nov 21 '17 at 06:23
  • @dan If "after-shocks" is the head, the indefinite article shouldn't be there. – Mohd Zulkanien Sarbini Nov 21 '17 at 06:37
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    In that sentence, @dan, "series" is the simple subject: "A series [ of aftershocks ] has damaged the town", rather than "A series [ of aftershocks ] have damaged the town". I think you're seeing that "dispute" and "after-shocks" carry more semantic weight. I agree. Those words have the largest influence on the meanings of those subjects. What I'm trying to show is that "years" and "series" carry more grammatical weight. Those words have the closest relationship to the predicators of their clauses. Those are the words to which subject/verb agreement applies. – Gary Botnovcan Nov 21 '17 at 13:17
  • @GaryBotnovcan, now I got your point. It seems that English is unlike my mother language. In my mother language, we will take the most semantic one as the main or single simple subject. I see that difference. Thanks for you explanation! – dan Nov 21 '17 at 23:28
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'Years led to a poll' is the grammatically correct sentence although it doesn't make much sense. Sometimes being grammatically correct just doesn't mean anything, does it!

Karen Kar
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