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Identifying the subject

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by Cumulonimbus » Mon Feb 25, 2013 10:23 pm
Hi Mitch,

I have a difficulty in identifying the subject in the below sentences:

"¢Being followed by paparazzi 24 hours a day has caused many celebrities to become extremely hostile to strangers (passive)
"¢Being heavily committed to a course of action, especially one that has worked well in the past, is likely to make an executive miss signs of incipient trouble or misinterpret them when they do appear (active)

Up until now my understanding was that Passive voice construction is the one in which the action of the verb is done on the subject of the sentence.
Based on this I thought the subject of the first sentence was celebrities and in the second sentence , which is not passive subject is executive, and being heavily committed simply tells what type of executive

According to a post from Ron:

https://www.beatthegmat.com/experts-plea ... tml#577138

* if to be ____ed describes an action that was done to someone/something by someone/something else, then that's a passive construction

Can you please explain how Being followed and Being heavily committed are the subjects here?

Is their any other way to look at it, in case of gerunds?

KR,
Cumulonimbus
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by GMATGuruNY » Tue Feb 26, 2013 3:58 am
Cumulonimbus wrote:Hi Mitch,

I have a difficulty in identifying the subject in the below sentences:

"¢Being followed by paparazzi 24 hours a day has caused many celebrities to become extremely hostile to strangers (passive)
"¢Being heavily committed to a course of action, especially one that has worked well in the past, is likely to make an executive miss signs of incipient trouble or misinterpret them when they do appear (active)

Up until now my understanding was that Passive voice construction is the one in which the action of the verb is done on the subject of the sentence.
Based on this I thought the subject of the first sentence was celebrities and in the second sentence , which is not passive subject is executive, and being heavily committed simply tells what type of executive.
A VERBing serving as a noun is called a gerund.
In the sentences above, being followed and being heavily committed are gerund phrases, each serving to express a STATE-OF-BEING.
The subject of each sentence is the state-of-being:
A PARTICULAR STATE-OF-BEING has caused many celebrities to become hostile.
A PARTICULAR STATE-OF-BEING is likely to make executives miss signs of incipient trouble.
In the first case, the celebrities' state-of-being is brought about BY AN OUTSIDE PARTY -- the paparazzi -- who follow the celebrities 24 hours a day.
In the second case, the executives bring about THEIR OWN state-of-being by heavily committing themselves to a course of action.
The CAUSE of the state-of-being is of no matter: in each case, it is perfectly fine for the state-of-being to serve as the subject of the sentence.
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