Identifying the Subject-Verb Pair - Giant Fungus Question

Hi,

This entire construction is noun ( a giant fungus)+ noun modifier construction (that clause....) and this construction is known as noun phrase and hence no subject for giant fungus

For more on this subject,check out these links

noun-noun-modifiers-before-we-start-discussing-about-the-137292.html
noun-noun-modifier-vs-verb-ing-modifier-as-discussed-in-137569.html
noun-modifiers-can-modify-slightly-far-away-noun-135868.html

a-primer-on-noun-phrases-and-noun-modifiers-135910.html

parallelism-imperfect-list-142791.html

Hope it helps

Hi nomadexistence,

Thanks for posting your doubt here.

Let's take a look at all the Subject- Verb (SV pairs) in this sentence:

Scientists have recently discovered what could be the largest and oldest living organism on Earth, a giant fungus that is an interwoven filigree of mushrooms and rootlike tentacles spawned by a single fertilized spore some 10,000 years ago and extending for more than 30 acres in the soil of a Michigan forest.

Cl 1: Scientists have recently discovered

Cl 2: what could be the largest and oldest living organism on Earth, a giant fungus

Cl 3: that is an interwoven filigree of mushrooms and rootlike tentacles

Cont. of Cl 2: spawned by a single fertilized spore some 10,000 years ago and extending for more than 30 acres in the soil of a Michigan forest.

Now here the Cl 1 is an Independent Clause (IC), and Cl 2 is a Dependent Clause (DC). Both are correctly connected and form an IC together. Now Cl 3 is again a DC, a Relative Clause modifier that gives us some information about "a giant fungus". So if we discard that modifier, this part of the sentence will read "a giant fungus spawned by... and extending for....". So here we have a Noun + Noun Modifier where "a giant fungus" is a Noun and the rest of the part is a Noun Modifier.

Now if you add a verb for "a giant fungus", it will create an IC and in that case we will have two ICs joined together by just a comma between Earth and a giant fungus. This will certainly lead to an error. Noun + Noun Modifiers are not made of clauses.

And yes. do read those Articles suggested by the poster above my post.

Hope this helps.
Thanks.
Shraddha

Hi

I guess you're reading it the wrong way.

Let's simplify... Get rid of the middlemen


Scientists have recently discovered what could be the
largest and oldest living organism on Earth, a giant
fungus that is an interwoven filigree of mushrooms and
rootlike tentacles spawned by a single fertilized spore
some 10,000 years ago and extending for more than
30 acres in the soil of a Michigan forest.


Scientists have recently discovered a giant fungus.


"A giant fungus" is in the object case. It is the object of the verb "discovered". I believe you thought it to be in Subject case and that's what led to the confusion


Hope this helps!
Dolly Sharma
Verbal Trainer
CrackVerbal

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