Identifying the Subject-Verb Pair - Giant Fungus Question

Question

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.

I was trying to identify the subject verb pairs as follows:

1) Scientists...have discovered
2) that...is
3) giant fungus...???. I figured it could not be spawned or extending as they are modifying 'giant fungus' and are not the verbs of this subject.

Please help me identify the SV pair for giant fungus.

Thanks

pqhai · Answer

Hello.

.......,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.

This is relative clause. 
- Subject is a giant fungus.   "that......"   is a relative clause used to modify a giant fungus. 
- "spawned" & "extending" is verb-ed and verb-ing modifers.

Hope it helps.

nomadicxistence · Answer

I understand that ",... a giant fungus" is a relative clause, but since every clause has a subject and a verb, what is the corresponding verb for the subject "a giant fungus" here?

WoundedTiger · Answer

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

egmat · Answer

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

CrackverbalGMAT · Answer

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

VerbalBot · Answer

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Identifying the Subject-Verb Pair - Giant Fungus Question

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