1. Independent project: Subject in English
Student name: LIN, SHINA Violet
The text used in analysis: Thoreau. ‘Conclusion [of Walden].’
The Subject
provides the person or Thing in whom is vested the success or failure of the proposition, what is ‘held responsible’
----Eggins (2004)
realizes the Thing by reference to which the proposition can be affirmed or denied
-----Halliday & Matthiessen (2004)
expresses the entity that the speaker wants to make responsible for the validity of the proposition being advanced in the clause
-----Thompson (1996)

2. Although there will only be one Subject per clause, the structure of the items which can be the Subject may vary. In Thoreau’s ‘Conclusion [of Walden]’, we can observe that the most frequent structure used for Subject items is noun groups.
Types of noun groups
Examples
Common
To the sick the doctors wisely recommend change of air and scenery.
Pronoun
Personal
…you cannot go to Tierra del Fuego this summer
Indefinite
One hastens to southern Africa to chase the giraffe
Interrogative
…which makes their graves
Demonstrative
…that is not the game he would be after
Proper
Does Mr. Grinnell know where he himself is?

3. In this text, the noun groups functioning the Subject Thoreau uses are often simple.
However, we can also observe some coordinated and multi-modified patterns. For example:
The other side of the globe is but the home of our correspondent.
Snipes and woodcocks also may afford rare sport;
…a greener and sweeter grass awaits him by the Yellowstone
…the earthly empire of the Czar is but a petty state…

4. Other Subject structures
‘There/here’ are words empty of content, and they may also function as the Subject
e.g., Thank Heaven, here is not all the world
…there are continents and seas in the moral world…
In those examples, ‘there/here’ are not defined, whilst they represent Subject structures.
A clause (that-clause, wh-clause, to-clause or Ving clause)
There is no example of a clause functioning the Subject we can observe from the text. So this structure might be used with low frequency.