Question

In which one of the following sentences is the simple subject also the complete subject?
A. Detective's Homer Fry and Janine Small looked high and low for clues.
B. Crocodiles, quiet as logs, lurked on the riverbank.
C. Large and small dinosaurs stalked the grassy plains.
D. Cory drove to Middleton in his search for Eloise

Answer 1

Hint:
- Subject is a noun or pronoun that is being described, discussed or dealt with in a sentence. It answers ‘what’ or ‘whom’ the sentence is about. There are 3 types of subjects: 1)Simple Subject 2) Complete Subject 3) Compound Subject
- In the above question, we have to identify the sentence whose subject acts both as a simple as well as a complete subject.

Complete answer:
Let us first understand what is simple and complete subject -
i) Simple subject - It is a one-word subject. It is a noun or a pronoun. It is without any modifier. It generally comes before the verb. For e.g Amrita is healthy, He is happy, they are playing. Etc.

ii) Complete subject - It is a simple subject that may be accompanied by modifiers. It generally comes before the main verb and comprises the details that answer ‘who’ or ‘what’ the sentence is about i.e the simple subject with all the words such as modifiers/qualifiers/determiners together form a complete subject. For e.g My friend Amrita is a great volleyball player, The school’s football team won the match, Tired students dragged their luggage across the hall etc.

A) Incorrect answer: ‘Detectives Homer Fry and Janine Small looked high and low for clues.’, has compound subject i.e. more than one subject/more than one noun. Therefore, since no simple subject exists, it is an incorrect option.

B) Incorrect answer: In ‘Crocodiles, quiet as logs, lurked on the riverbank.’, the simple subject is ‘crocodiles’ and the complete subject is ‘Crocodiles, quiet as logs’ ‘i.e. qualifiers are added along with a simple subject. Therefore, since the simple subject is not the same as the complete subject, it is an incorrect option.

C) Incorrect answer: In ‘ Large and small dinosaurs stalked the grassy plains.’, the simple subject is ‘dinosaurs’ and the complete subject is' Large and small dinosaurs ‘i.e. qualifiers are added along with a simple subject. Therefore, since the simple subject is not the same as the complete subject, it is an incorrect option.

D) Correct answer: In ‘ Cory drove to Middleton in his search for Eloise.’, the simple subject is ‘Cory’ because it lies immediately before the main verb ‘drove’. The subject does not have any added qualifiers/modifiers therefore, the simple subject will function as the complete subject as well. Therefore, this is the correct answer.

Hence the correct answer is option ‘D’.

Note: Compound subjects and complete subjects are different from each other. Compound subjects contain more than one subject whereas complete subjects answer ‘who’ and ‘what’ questions related to one subject only.