nsubj: nominal subject
A nominal subject (nsubj) is a nominal which is the syntactic subject of a clause. The governor of this relation is typically a verb with an exceptions: when the verb is a copular verb, the nsubj relation is headed by the complement of the copular verb, which can be an adjective or a noun.
Ai balconi si affacciano donne/NOUN anziane.
nsubj(affacciano, donne)
Chi/PRON ha ucciso l'ingegner Reali?
nsubj(ucciso, Chi)
La situazione arbitrale è pessima/ADJ.
nsubj(pessima, situazione)
cop(pessima, è)
Questa ricchezza è tutta apparenza/NOUN.
nsubj(apparenza, ricchezza)
cop(apparenza, è)
The nsubj role is only applied to semantic arguments of a predicate. When there is an empty argument in a grammatical subject position (sometimes called a pleonastic or expletive), it is labeled as expl or better expl:impers
Si può procedere .
expl:impers(procedere, Si)
NB
Note that when the verb is used in the passive voice the nominal syntactic subject is marked as nsubjpass.
When the subject is clausal, it’s preferable to use other specialized relations (csubj or csubjpass).
Treebank Statistics (UD_Italian)
This relation is universal.
12434 nodes (4%) are attached to their parents as nsubj.
9441 instances of nsubj (76%) are right-to-left (child precedes parent).
Average distance between parent and child is 3.83971368827409.
The following 42 pairs of parts of speech are connected with nsubj: it-pos/VERB-it-pos/NOUN (5666; 46% instances), it-pos/VERB-it-pos/PRON (2646; 21% instances), it-pos/VERB-it-pos/PROPN (1752; 14% instances), it-pos/ADJ-it-pos/NOUN (620; 5% instances), it-pos/PRON-it-pos/NOUN (496; 4% instances), it-pos/NOUN-it-pos/NOUN (398; 3% instances), it-pos/NOUN-it-pos/PROPN (167; 1% instances), it-pos/PRON-it-pos/PROPN (148; 1% instances), it-pos/NOUN-it-pos/PRON (138; 1% instances), it-pos/ADJ-it-pos/PRON (109; 1% instances), it-pos/ADJ-it-pos/PROPN (70; 1% instances), it-pos/PROPN-it-pos/NOUN (40; 0% instances), it-pos/VERB-it-pos/NUM (33; 0% instances), it-pos/PRON-it-pos/PRON (23; 0% instances), it-pos/NUM-it-pos/NOUN (19; 0% instances), it-pos/VERB-it-pos/ADJ (19; 0% instances), it-pos/ADV-it-pos/NOUN (12; 0% instances), it-pos/VERB-it-pos/VERB (11; 0% instances), it-pos/NOUN-it-pos/NUM (9; 0% instances), it-pos/AUX-it-pos/NOUN (7; 0% instances), it-pos/PROPN-it-pos/PRON (7; 0% instances), it-pos/ADV-it-pos/PRON (5; 0% instances), it-pos/PROPN-it-pos/PROPN (4; 0% instances), it-pos/VERB-it-pos/SYM (4; 0% instances), it-pos/AUX-it-pos/PROPN (3; 0% instances), it-pos/NOUN-it-pos/VERB (3; 0% instances), it-pos/VERB-it-pos/ADV (3; 0% instances), it-pos/ADJ-it-pos/NUM (2; 0% instances), it-pos/ADV-it-pos/PROPN (2; 0% instances), it-pos/NOUN-it-pos/ADJ (2; 0% instances), it-pos/NOUN-it-pos/ADV (2; 0% instances), it-pos/NUM-it-pos/PRON (2; 0% instances), it-pos/VERB-it-pos/X (2; 0% instances), it-pos/X-it-pos/NOUN (2; 0% instances), it-pos/ADJ-it-pos/ADJ (1; 0% instances), it-pos/ADJ-it-pos/SYM (1; 0% instances), it-pos/AUX-it-pos/PRON (1; 0% instances), it-pos/PRON-it-pos/ADJ (1; 0% instances), it-pos/PRON-it-pos/NUM (1; 0% instances), it-pos/PRON-it-pos/VERB (1; 0% instances), it-pos/PUNCT-it-pos/NOUN (1; 0% instances), it-pos/SYM-it-pos/NOUN (1; 0% instances).
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1 Tutti tutto DET T Gender=Masc|Number=Plur|PronType=Predet 3 det:predet _ _
2 gli il DET RD Definite=Def|Gender=Masc|Number=Plur|PronType=Art 3 det _ _
3 esseri essere NOUN S Gender=Masc|Number=Plur 5 nsubj _ _
4 umani umano ADJ A Gender=Masc|Number=Plur 3 amod _ _
5 sanno sapere VERB V Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=3|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin 0 root _ _
6 di di ADP E _ 9 mark _ _
7 poter potere AUX VM VerbForm=Inf 9 aux _ _
8 essere essere VERB V VerbForm=Inf 9 cop _ _
9 più più ADV B _ 5 xcomp _ _
10 di di ADP E _ 11 case _ _
11 ciò ciò PRON PD Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|PronType=Dem 9 nmod _ _
12 che che PRON PR PronType=Rel 13 nsubj _ _
13 sono essere VERB V Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=3|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin 11 acl:relcl _ SpaceAfter=No
14 . . PUNCT FS _ 5 punct _ _
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1 Tutti tutto DET T Gender=Masc|Number=Plur|PronType=Predet 3 det:predet _ _
2 gli il DET RD Definite=Def|Gender=Masc|Number=Plur|PronType=Art 3 det _ _
3 esseri essere NOUN S Gender=Masc|Number=Plur 5 nsubj _ _
4 umani umano ADJ A Gender=Masc|Number=Plur 3 amod _ _
5 sanno sapere VERB V Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=3|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin 0 root _ _
6 di di ADP E _ 9 mark _ _
7 poter potere AUX VM VerbForm=Inf 9 aux _ _
8 essere essere VERB V VerbForm=Inf 9 cop _ _
9 più più ADV B _ 5 xcomp _ _
10 di di ADP E _ 11 case _ _
11 ciò ciò PRON PD Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|PronType=Dem 9 nmod _ _
12 che che PRON PR PronType=Rel 13 nsubj _ _
13 sono essere VERB V Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=3|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin 11 acl:relcl _ SpaceAfter=No
14 . . PUNCT FS _ 5 punct _ _
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# visual-style 5 bgColor:blue
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1 " " PUNCT FB _ 5 punct _ SpaceAfter=No
2 La il DET RD Definite=Def|Gender=Fem|Number=Sing|PronType=Art 3 det _ _
3 Pivetti Pivetti PROPN SP _ 5 nsubj _ _
4 ha avere AUX VA Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin 5 aux _ _
5 fatto fare VERB V Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Part 0 root _ _
6 benissimo bene ADV B Degree=Abs 5 advmod _ _
7 a a ADP E _ 8 mark _ _
8 decidere decidere VERB V VerbForm=Inf 5 xcomp _ _
9 di di ADP E _ 10 case _ _
10 testa testa NOUN S Gender=Fem|Number=Sing 8 nmod _ _
11 sua suo DET AP Gender=Fem|Number=Sing|Poss=Yes|PronType=Prs 10 det:poss _ SpaceAfter=No
12 . . PUNCT FS _ 5 punct _ _
nsubj in other languages: [bg] [cs] [de] [el] [en] [es] [eu] [fa] [fi] [fr] [ga] [he] [hu] [it] [ja] [ko] [sv] [u]