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This page pertains to UD version 2.

nsubj: nominal subject

A nominal subject (nsubj) is a nominal phrase which is the syntactic subject of a clause. (See csubj for when the subject is clausal.) When there is an empty argument in a grammatical subject position (expletive), it is labeled as expl.

# visual-style 7 6 nsubj	color:blue
# visual-style 6	bgColor:blue
# visual-style 6	fgColor:white
# visual-style 7	bgColor:blue
# visual-style 7	fgColor:white
1	Messe	_	NOUN	NOMcom	_	7	obj	_	_
2	e	_	CCONJ	CONcoo	_	3	cc	_	_
3	matines	_	NOUN	NOMcom	_	1	conj	_	_
4	ad	_	VERB	VERcjg	_	7	aux	_	_
5	li	_	DET	DETdef	_	6	det	_	_
6	reis	_	NOUN	NOMcom	_	7	nsubj	_	_
7	escultet	_	VERB	VERppe	_	0	root	_	_

The governor of the nsubj relation might not always be a verb: when the verb is a copular verb, the root of the clause is the complement of the copular verb, which can be an adjective or noun, including a noun marked by a preposition, as in the examples below.

# visual-style 3 1 nsubj	color:blue
# visual-style 1	bgColor:blue
# visual-style 1	fgColor:white
# visual-style 3	bgColor:blue
# visual-style 3	fgColor:white
1	Nicolete	_	PROPN	NOMpro	_	3	nsubj	_	_
2	est	_	VERB	VERcjg	_	3	cop	_	_
3	cointe	_	ADJ	ADJqua	_	0	root	_	_
4	et	_	CCONJ	CONcoo	_	5	cc	_	_
5	gaie	_	ADJ	ADJqua	_	3	conj	_	_

Note that in Old French, nsubj is not always expressed.

1	Mais	_	CCONJ	CONcoo	_	2	cc:nc	_	_
2	prendés	_	VERB	VERcjg	_	0	root	_	_
3	le	_	DET	DETdef	_	4	det	_	_
4	fille	_	NOUN	NOMcom	_	2	obj	_	_
5	a	_	ADP	PRE	_	7	case	_	_
6	un	_	DET	DETndf	_	7	det	_	_
7	roi	_	NOUN	NOMcom	_	4	nmod	_	_
8	u	_	CCONJ	CONcoo	_	11	cc	_	_
9	a	_	ADP	PRE	_	11	case	_	_
10	un	_	DET	DETndf	_	11	det	_	_
11	conte	_	NOUN	NOMcom	_	7	conj	_	_


nsubj in other languages: [bej] [bg] [bm] [cop] [cs] [de] [el] [en] [es] [ess] [et] [eu] [fi] [fr] [fro] [ga] [gd] [gsw] [hy] [it] [ja] [ka] [kk] [kmr] [ky] [mr] [myv] [no] [pa] [pcm] [pt] [qpm] [ro] [ru] [sl] [ssp] [sv] [swl] [tr] [u] [uz] [vi] [xcl] [yue] [zh]