Subject and Object in Commands?
I'm having difficulty figuring out the subject and object in the following sentence:
Give me that pencil.
The confusion is since someone is requesting the pencil, should they be the subject? In which case the pencil is the object? Or is the pencil the subject, and the person who is implied in the giving the object. How is it determined? Thanks.
You're on the right track when you use the term implied, because the subject of the sentence is the implied you, even though the word you is not in the sentence. This answer, by the way, is from a non-grammarian.
The sentence as it is, is in the imperative mode, which we use to give commands or make requests. You could expand the sentence and not change its basic meaning by saying:
"[You] give [to] me the pencil."
The OBJECT is the pencil. The implied SUBJECT is the implied (i.e., missing) you. The person who gives the pencil to the requester is the subject, since in an imperative sentence, the person who is "subjected to" the command can say yes or no. As we sometimes say, "The ball is in his court."
If, as a parent of a preschooler, I see my child playing with a sharpened pencil, I will say to him, "Give me the pencil!" (Actually, I would more than likely snatch it from his hand.) The child could decide no, and keep the pencil. We could say he is disobeying an "order" from his boss by refusing to be the subject of my imperative.
That, however, is part of the risk of issuing commands: the one to whom the command is given can say yes, no, or "later, dude."
That's how it goes when two people have their eye on the same object, which is in the possession of one of them. The person who holds the pencil in his hand is really the subject of the command. If he says no, a fight might ensue. If he says yes and hands it over, the case is closed (for now). Of course he could ruin the pencil by breaking it in half, but that scenario is for another day.
You can tell that the subject is you because of the way the reflexive works. Only transitive verbs can take objects, and when the subject is the same as the object of a transitive verb, one has to use the reflexive pronoun (the ones that end in -self/selves). That's the rule; anything else produce ungrammaticality
[an asterisk * before a sentence marks ungrammaticality]:
- I saw him/her/you/them, but *I saw me.
She saw him/you/them/me, but *She saw her.
I saw myself, but *I saw himself/herself/yourself/themselves.
- She saw herself, but *She saw himself/myself/yourself/themselves.
In an imperative, the same rule applies, but the subject isn't actually present:
- Give me the book, but *Give myself the book. (first person reflexive is ungrammatical)
- *Give you the book, but Give yourself the book. (second person reflexive is grammatical)
- Give her the book, but *Give herself the book. (third person reflexive is ungrammatical)
Since only the second person reflexive object is grammatical, it follows from the reflexive rule that the subject has to be second person, i.e, you.