Subject with 2 verbs

Question

Sentence - Whoever wins the competition will receive the gold trophy.

Here the subject is " whoever " and there are 2 verbs - wins / will receive , Is this sentence correct ? Or comma should come after competition ? "Whoever wins the competition , will receive the gold trophy "?

daagh · Answer

The perception that there are two verbs for the single subject ‘whoever’ is not valid.

Let’s insert the supposed subject for the two verbs and see how valid the meaning goes.

Whoever wins the competition whoever will receive the gold trophy – We can now see why ‘whoever’ is not the subject.

The actual subject is the entire subordinate clause -Whoever wins the competition – and the verb for the subject is --- will receive the gold trophy. Normally there is no need to use a comma between a subject and its verb.

AjiteshArun · Answer

The previous post is correct. The subject here is a noun clause and this noun clause could act as an object as well:

The gold medal will be given to   whoever  wins the competition .

jabhatta2 · Answer

AjiteshArun   daagh   DmitryFarber  - just curious, is this a sentence with two verbs ?

Samantha made  the kid cry

Here -- are there two verbs in the sentence ?

I know  made   is one verb but is   "Cry"   another verb ?

AjiteshArun · Answer

Hi  jabhatta2 ,

Made  is a "complete" verb.  Cry  is in the infinitive form (the plain form, without the  to ).

jabhatta2 · Answer

Hi  AjiteshArun  - so are you saying,   "Cry"   (which I agree is in the infinitive form) is NOT a verb in this context ?

i.e. there is only ONE verb in the above sentence ?

AjiteshArun · Answer

I call verbs that can combine with a subject to form an independent clause "complete" verbs.  Cry  in this case is not one of those "complete" verbs. The structure that we see here is:

made  + {object} + {bare infinitive} (this is the plain form without the  to )

More generally, infinitives are verb  forms .

vv65 · Answer

In your sentence, the only verb is MADE. 
CRY does not appear in the role of verb; it is more like a modifier. To understand this concept, look at the sentence 'Samantha made the kid SAD': SAD is certainly not a verb!

For CRY to be a verb in a sentence, it needs a subject. 
CRY can be a plural verb, as in 'Kids cry'. Which is a general statement that kids tend to cry, or that they cry routinely.
In the Samantha sentence, CRY does not have any plural subject, and it does not have this meaning either.

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Subject with 2 verbs

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