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Student Question

What are the complete subject and predicate in a sentence? What are compound subjects and predicates?

The worldwide disappearance of frogs disturbs and worries me.

My partner and I want to know the truth.

Quick answer:

The complete subject of a sentence includes all the words that tell what the sentence is about, while the complete predicate includes the verb and all the words that describe the action or state of being. In "The worldwide disappearance of frogs disturbs and worries me," the complete subject is "The worldwide disappearance of frogs," and the complete predicate is "disturbs and worries me." A compound subject involves two or more nouns, and a compound predicate involves two or more verbs.

Expert Answers

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Have you ever heard this old proverb: "Give a man a fish, and he has food for a day. Teach a man to fish, and he has food for life"? If I were to give you the answers, you'd never learn anything.

You're in the 11th grade, so by now you know how to locate the simple subject and the simple predicate in a sentence. I'll use your first sentence as an example. The simple subject is typed in bold italic, the simple predicate in bold.

The world wide disappearence of frogs disturbs and worries me.

The complete subject is usually everything up to the predicate. So in that same sentence, the complete subject is

The world wide disappearence of frogs

The complete predicate is the verb and everything after it:

disturbs and worries me.

A compound subject is two or more nouns that act as the topic of the sentence. I'll use the second sentence as an example:

My partner and Iwant to know the truth.

The complete subject is My partner and I. The complete predicate is want to know the truth.

Likewise, a compound predicate is two or more verbs used to show the action in the sentence. The first example above contains a compound predicate.

Visit the links below for more info. If you still need help understanding how to identify compound subjects and predicates, you should ask your teacher for help.

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