On 2010-11-09, at 10:41 PM, Susan wrote:

> (Although, "Get lost" has a subject.)  

I would agree, but the definition of 'subject' given here is "a noun or pronoun that performs a verb phrase". Any bright grade 5 students is going to want to know where that noun or pronoun is? Sure, it has an implied subject, but then so does the participial in "Reaching, he could just touch the cookie jar." I'm happy to call 'jumping' a clause here, but I expect that few people in Scott's department would be. Indeed, the definition seems to be designed specifically to exclude participial and infinitival clauses.

While on the topic of subjects, notice also that 'subject, complete' is "the simple subject and its modifiers" but nowhere is 'modify' or 'modifier' defined. In the sentence "editing these definitions is hard", presumably the complete subject is "editing these definitions." So is "these definitions" modifying 'editing'? I certainly hope not.

When there has been so much good work done on English grammar in the last 100 years, why would you ignore it all and keep using definitions out of the 18th century? 

PS, I'm afraid I must have missed Susan's own suggestions about how to improve the definitions.

Best,
Brett

-----------------------
Brett Reynolds
English Language Centre
Humber College Institute of Technology and Advanced Learning
Toronto, Ontario, Canada
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