Sentence without a subject

Apart from having an interesting subject matter, a piece of writing must be grammatically sound to be a good read for readers.




Many a time you have seen a sentence being written without a subject - a common error quite frequently committed by writers (experienced or otherwise).

Take for instance the sentence "Just because you've retired, doesn't mean your life and health have to go downhill" which appears on the front page of a pullout of a popular English daily.

If you hear the sentence in a speech, you may not find anything wrong with it.

On analysis, you will detect the error. 'Just because you've retired' is an adverb clause (expressing cause and effect). As you know, an adverb clause can be placed elsewhere in the sentence not necessarily at the beginning. Care, however, must be exercised not to misplace it or else, the sentence will become ungrammatical or a different meaning or ambiguity will emerge.

In this case, if you shift the adverb clause to the end of the sentence, its meaning will not be changed; but in doing so, you will realize that the sentence has no subject - doesn't mean (the main clause) your life and health have to go downhill just because you've retired.

A subject is, therefore, required to be added in front of the main clause to make the sentence complete. Such a subject should be in the form of a preparatory pronoun (it): "Just because you've retired, it doesn't mean your life and health have to go downhill."

All truths are easy to understand once they are discovered; the point is to discover them.
-- Galileo Galilei