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Thread: John, come here! Subject?

  1. #1
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    Default John, come here! Subject?

    I have a basic question, however, as native speakers do not agree on this everywhere, I would just like to ask grammar specialists.

    So the question is simple:

    John, come here!


    Is John the subject in this sentence? Or is it "you"?

    In my opinion, and in Spanish for that matter, the correct answer would be "you", NOT John, as the person addressed is second person, not third person.
    Of course, John and "you" are the same person here....++

    Thanks for taking the time to answer, and if you can add a link to some grammar explanation, I would be grateful
    anhnha likes this.

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    Default Re: John, come here! Subject?

    In that group of words, the noun 'John' is not the grammatical subject of the verb 'come'; the implied subject is indeed 'you'.
    heidita, SoothingDave and anhnha like this.
    Context is important. Please provide enough for us to be able to deal effectively with your question.
    Your thread title should include all or part of the word/phrase being discussed.
    If you just want to know the meaning of a word, try OneLook Dictionary Search first.


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    Default Re: John, come here! Subject?

    HI 5jj, you wouldn't know a web page where I could read more about this?

    thanks

    Thanks for all answers and explanations.

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    Default Re: John, come here! Subject?

    An imperative is always directed in some way at a person or people- that person or those people are the implied subject. I don't honestly think there's much more to it than this. You can add things like institutions and dogs, but there's always a target- there's no point in giving an instruction to no one or nothing. That's your implied subject. You could remove John from that sentence and it would still be a complete sentence Naming the person doesn't change anything, even if they and the implied subject are one and the same.
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  5. #5
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    Default Re: John, come here! Subject?

    HI Tdol, very good point, you remove the name and it would still be a complete sentence, thanks a lot!

    thanks to everybody

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