How to break down this sentence from the perspective of grammar

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Andy Lin

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Context: From the goals of extendibility and reusability, two of the principal quality factors introduced in chapter 1, follows the need for flexible system architectures, made of autonomous software components.

Image: https://imgur.com/a/sOQVtfZ

I knew this sentence "two of the principal quality factors introduced in chapter 1" is a complement for extendibility and reusability, so I omit it for the rest of my discussion.

In my opinion, the starting word "From" is a preposition, so it makes sense that a subject and verb. follows. Like:


From the goals of extendibility and reusability, ___________________
^^^ ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^ ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
prep. _____________object _________________It should be S + V

(I don't know why space is of no effect on above, so I use underscore instead of space)

Obviously, this sentence doesn't follow this rule. There is a verb "follow" follows.

There should be a subject in this sentence. I'm confused that where is that subject. Or who is that subject?
 

jutfrank

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I don't follow the reasoning in your post, I'm afraid.

Let me rephrase the sentence to make the constituents easier to see:

The need for flexible system architectures follows from the goals of extendibilty and reusabilty.

The red part is the subject and follows is the main verb.

The pattern used is: something follows from something
 

PaulMatthews

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From the goals of extendibility and reusability, two of the principal quality factors introduced in chapter 1, follows the need for flexible system architectures, made of autonomous software components.


The first thing to observe is that the whole of the underlined constituent is preposed. Its basic position would be after the verb (see below).

The second thing is that the NP "two of the principal quality factors introduced in chapter 1" is a supplementary NP, an optional parenthetical element.

Thirdly, the function of the preposed element is complement of "follows", whose subject is "The need for flexible system architecture".

Things become clearer if we consider the basic (non-preposed) equivalent:

The need for flexible system architectures follows from the goals of extendibility and reusability, two of the principal quality factors introduced in chapter 1, made of autonomous software components.
 

Andy Lin

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Thank you.
I may want to ask that what is NP, and what does it mean by preposed?
 

PaulMatthews

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Thank you.
I may want to ask that what is NP, and what does it mean by preposed?

NP = noun phrase.

Preposing involves putting an element before the subject of a clause when its basic position would be after the verb.
 

Andy Lin

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Things become clearer if we consider the basic (non-preposed) equivalent:

The need for flexible system architectures follows from the goals of extendibility and reusability, two of the principal quality factors introduced in chapter 1, made of autonomous software components.

In my opinion, the post-modifier "made of autonomous software components" is supposed to put before the subject "The need for flexible system architectures", because it was originally used to complement it.

By the way, is there any keyword I can google for the subject of prepose? I seldom see this usage and I want to study it.
 
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