457. Let us take for study and analysis the following paragraph from Jack London:
Man's efficiency for food-getting and shelter-getting has not diminished since the day of the cave-man. It has increased a thousand-fold. Wonderful artifices and marvelous inventions have been made. Why then do millions of modern men live more miserably than the cave-man lived?
Let us take the first sentence out of this paragraph and analyze it. Man's efficiency for food-getting and shelter-getting has not diminished since the day of the cave-man. What is the main word in this sentence—the word about which the entire statement is made? Clearly it is the word efficiency. Efficiency is the noun which is the subject of the sentence.
Then you might ask what sort of efficiency and whose efficiency? What sort of efficiency is explained by the adjective phrase, for food-getting and shelter-getting. Whose efficiency is explained by the possessive noun, man's. Therefore, the complete subject is, Man's efficiency for food-getting and shelter-getting.
Now we are ready to consider the predicate. What has efficiency done? It has not diminished. Has diminished is the verb phrase, which is the simple predicate of this sentence. It is modified by the adverb not, so we have Man's efficiency has not diminished. Then we might ask, when has it not diminished? And this is answered by the phrase, since the day of the cave-man. So we have our complete predicate, Has not diminished since the day of the cave-man.
In this way we can analyze or break up into its different parts, every sentence. First find the subject, then ask what that subject does, and the answer will be the predicate or verb. Do not confuse the verb with the words which state how or why the action is performed, and do not confuse the verb with the object of the action. The verb simply asserts the action. The other words will add the additional information as to how or why or when or upon whom the action was performed.
Let us finish the analysis of the sentences in the paragraph quoted from Jack London. In the second sentence, It has increased a thousand-fold, the personal pronoun it, which refers to the noun efficiency, is the subject of the sentence; and when you ask what it has done, you find that the question is answered by the verb, has increased. Therefore, has increased is the verb in the sentence. The noun, thousand-fold is used as an adverb telling how much it has increased. It is an adverb-noun, which you will find explained in Section 291.
In the next sentence, Wonderful artifices and marvelous inventions have been made, we find two nouns about which a statement is made.Artifices have been made and inventions have been made; so artifices and inventions are both the subjects of the sentence. Therefore, we have a compound subject with a single verb, have been made. Artifices is modified by the adjective wonderful, and inventions is modified by the adjective marvelous, so we have wonderful artifices and marvelous inventions, as the complete subject, and have been made, as the complete predicate.
In the last sentence, Why then do millions of modern men live more miserably than the cave-man lived?, we find a sentence which is a trifle more difficult of analysis. It is written in the interrogative form. If you find it difficult to determine the subject and the verb or verb phrase in an interrogative sentence, rewrite the sentence in the assertive form, and you will find it easier to analyze.
When we rewrite this sentence we have, Millions of modern men do live more miserably than the cave-man lived. Now it is evident that the noun millions is the subject of the sentence. We see quickly that men cannot be the subject because it is the object of the preposition of, in the phrase, of modern men. So we decide that the noun millions is the simple subject.