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What is the simple subject and simple predicate in this sentence?

Two days of rain and fog can make a whole week dreary and disagreeable. My answer was: s.s. rain/fog s.p. dreary/disagreeable. Is that right?

1 Answer
May 11, 2018

"Days" is the simple subject. "Can make" is the simple predicate.

Explanation:

First, let's find the simple predicate. What is the action in this sentence? The action is the verb phrase $\text{can make}$:

Two days of rain and fog $\textcolor{red}{\text{can make}}$ a whole week dreary and disagreeable.

Now comes the tricky part. What is doing the action of the sentence? At first glance, it looks like it should be $\text{rain}$ and $\text{fog}$. Rain and fog make a week dreary, right?

That would be right, but they are actually part of the prepositional phrase "of rain and fog", so they cannot be the simple subjects. They are modifying the real subject $\text{days}$.

Days can make a week disagreeable.

Two stackrel"simple subject"overbracecolor(blue)"days" of rain and fog stackrel"simple predicate"overbracecolor(red)"can make" a whole week dreary and disagreeable.

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