What is "subject"

Subject \Sub*ject"\, a. [OE. suget, OF. souzget, sougit (in which the first part is L. subtus below, fr. sub under), subgiet, subject, F. sujet, from L. subjectus lying under, subjected, p. p. of subjicere, subicere, to throw, lay, place, or bring under; sub under + jacere to throw. See Jet a shooting forth.]

1. Placed or situated under; lying below, or in a lower situation. [Obs.]
   --Spenser.

2. Placed under the power of another; specifically (International Law), owing allegiance to a particular sovereign or state; as, Jamaica is subject to Great Britain.

   Esau was never subject to Jacob.
   --Locke.

3. Exposed; liable; prone; disposed; as, a country subject to extreme heat; men subject to temptation.

   All human things are subject to decay.
   --Dryden.

4. Obedient; submissive.

   Put them in mind to be subject to principalities.
   --Titus iii. 1.

   Syn: Liable; subordinate; inferior; obnoxious; exposed. See Liable.

Subject \Sub*ject"\, n. [From L. subjectus, through an old form of F. sujet. See Subject, a.]

1. That which is placed under the authority, dominion, control, or influence of something else.

2. Specifically: One who is under the authority of a ruler and is governed by his laws; one who owes allegiance to a sovereign or a sovereign state; as, a subject of Queen Victoria; a British subject; a subject of the United States.

   Was never subject longed to be a king, As I do long and wish to be a subject.
   --Shak.

   The subject must obey his prince, because God commands it, human laws require it.
   --Swift.

   Note: In international law, the term subject is convertible with citizen.

3. That which is subjected, or submitted to, any physical operation or process; specifically (Anat.), a dead body used for the purpose of dissection.

4. That which is brought under thought or examination; that which is taken up for discussion, or concerning which anything is said or done. ``This subject for heroic song.''
   --Milton.

   Make choice of a subject, beautiful and noble, which . . . shall afford an ample field of matter wherein to expatiate.
   --Dryden.

   The unhappy subject of these quarrels.
   --Shak.

5. The person who is treated of; the hero of a piece; the chief character.

   Writers of particular lives . . . are apt to be prejudiced in favor of their subject.
   --C. Middleton.

6. (Logic & Gram.) That of which anything is affirmed or predicated; the theme of a proposition or discourse; that which is spoken of; as, the nominative case is the subject of the verb.

   The subject of a proposition is that concerning which anything is affirmed or denied.
   --I. Watts.

7. That in which any quality, attribute, or relation, whether spiritual or material, inheres, or to which any of these appertain; substance; substratum.

   That which manifests its qualities -- in other words, that in which the appearing causes inhere, that to which they belong -- is called their subject or substance, or substratum.
   --Sir W. Hamilton.

8. Hence, that substance or being which is conscious of its own operations; the mind; the thinking agent or principal; the ego. Cf. Object, n., 2.

   The philosophers of mind have, in a manner, usurped and appropriated this expression to themselves. Accordingly, in their hands, the phrases conscious or thinking subject, and subject, mean precisely the same thing.
   --Sir W. Hamilton.

9. (Mus.) The principal theme, or leading thought or phrase, on which a composition or a movement is based.

   The earliest known form of subject is the ecclesiastical cantus firmus, or plain song.
   --Rockstro.

10. (Fine Arts) The incident, scene, figure, group, etc., which it is the aim of the artist to represent.

Subject \Sub*ject"\, v. t. [imp. & p. p. Subjected; p. pr. & vb. n. Subjecting.]

1. To bring under control, power, or dominion; to make subject; to subordinate; to subdue.

   Firmness of mind that subjects every gratification of sense to the rule of right reason.
   --C. Middleton.

   In one short view subjected to our eye, Gods, emperors, heroes, sages, beauties, lie.
   --Pope.

   He is the most subjected, the most ?nslaved, who is so in his understanding.
   --Locke.

2. To expose; to make obnoxious or liable; as, credulity subjects a person to impositions.

3. To submit; to make accountable.

   God is not bound to subject his ways of operation to the scrutiny of our thoughts.
   --Locke.

4. To make subservient.

   Subjected to his service angel wings.
   --Milton.

5. To cause to undergo; as, to subject a substance to a white heat; to subject a person to a rigid test.

late 14c., "to make (a person or nation) subject to another by force," also "to render submissive or dependent," from Medieval Latin subiectare "place beneath," frequentative of Latin subicere "to make subject, subordinate" (see subject (n.)). Meaning "to lay open or expose to (some force or occurrence)" is recorded from early 15c. (implied in subjected). Related: Subjecting.

early 14c., from Old French suget, subject (Modern French sujet), from Latin subiectus (see subject (n.)).

early 14c., "person under control or dominion of another," specifically a government or ruler, from Old French sogit, suget, subget "a subject person or thing" (12c., Modern French sujet), from noun use of Latin subiectus "lying under, below, near bordering on," figuratively "subjected, subdued," past participle of subicere, subiicere "to place under, throw under, bind under; to make subject, subordinate," from sub "under" (see sub-) + combining form of iacere "to throw" (see jet (v.)). In 14c., sugges, sogetis, subgit, sugette; form re-Latinized in English 16c.\n

\nMeaning "person or thing regarded as recipient of action, one that may be acted upon" is recorded from 1590s. Grammatical sense is recorded from 1630s, from Latin subjectum "grammatical subject," noun use of the neuter of the Latin past participle. Likewise some restricted uses in logic and philosophy are borrowed directly from Latin subjectum as "foundation or subject of a proposition," a loan-translation of Aristotle's to hypokeimenon. Meaning "subject matter of an art or science" is attested from 1540s, probably short for subject matter (late 14c.), which is from Medieval Latin subjecta materia, a loan translation of Greek hypokeimene hyle (Aristotle), literally "that which lies beneath."

Etymology 1

1. Likely to be affected by or to experience something. Etymology 2

   n. 1 (label en grammar) In a clause: the word or word group (usually a noun phrase) that is dealt with. In active clauses with verbs denoting an action, the '''subject''' and the actor are usually the same. 2 The main topic of a paper, work of art, discussion, field of study, etc. Etymology 3

   v

2. (context transitive construed with '''to''' English) To cause (someone or something) to undergo a particular experience, especially one that is unpleasant or unwanted.

1. adj. not exempt from tax; "the gift will be subject to taxation" [syn: subject(p)]

2. possibly accepting or permitting; "a passage capable of misinterpretation"; "open to interpretation"; "an issue open to question"; "the time is fixed by the director and players and therefore subject to much variation" [syn: capable, open]

3. being under the power or sovereignty of another or others; "subject peoples"; "a dependent prince" [syn: dependent]

1. n. the subject matter of a conversation or discussion; "he didn't want to discuss that subject"; "it was a very sensitive topic"; "his letters were always on the theme of love" [syn: topic, theme]

2. some situation or event that is thought about; "he kept drifting off the topic"; "he had been thinking about the subject for several years"; "it is a matter for the police" [syn: topic, issue, matter]

3. a branch of knowledge; "in what discipline is his doctorate?"; "teachers should be well trained in their subject"; "anthropology is the study of human beings" [syn: discipline, subject area, subject field, field, field of study, study, bailiwick, branch of knowledge]

4. something (a person or object or scene) selected by an artist or photographer for graphic representation; "a moving picture of a train is more dramatic than a still picture of the same subject" [syn: content, depicted object]

5. a person who is subjected to experimental or other observational procedures; someone who is an object of investigation; "the subjects for this investigation were selected randomly"; "the cases that we studied were drawn from two different communities" [syn: case, guinea pig]

6. a person who owes allegiance to that nation; "a monarch has a duty to his subjects" [syn: national]

7. (grammar) one of the two main constituents of a sentence; the grammatical constituent about which something is predicated

8. (logic) the first term of a proposition

9. v. cause to experience or suffer or make liable or vulnerable to; "He subjected me to his awful poetry"; "The sergeant subjected the new recruits to many drills"; "People in Chernobyl were subjected to radiation"

10. make accountable for; "He did not want to subject himself to the judgments of his superiors"

11. make subservient; force to submit or subdue [syn: subjugate]

12. refer for judgment or consideration; "She submitted a proposal to the agency" [syn: submit]

A subject is a being who has a unique consciousness and/or unique personal experiences, or an entity that has a relationship with another entity that exists outside of itself (called an " object"). A subject is an observer and an object is a thing observed. This concept is especially important in continental philosophy, where 'the Subject' is a central term in debates over human autonomy and the nature of the self.

The sharp distinction between subject and object corresponds to the distinction, in the philosophy of René Descartes, between thought and extension. Descartes believed that thought (subjectivity) was the essence of the mind, and that extension (the occupation of space) was the essence of matter.

In the modern continental tradition, debates over the nature of the Subject play a role comparable to debates over personhood within the distinct Anglo-American tradition of analytical philosophy.

In critical theory and psychology, subjectivity is also the actions or discourses that produce individuals or 'I'—the 'I' is the subject.

Subject ( "lying beneath") may refer to:

In music, a subject is the material, usually a recognizable melody, upon which part or all of a composition is based. In forms other than the fugue this may be known as the theme.

In computer programming within the subject-oriented programming paradigm, subjects are a way to separate concerns. For example, in a Shape class with two methods Draw and Move , each method would be considered a subject.

Subject is R&B singer Dwele's 2003 debut album, released on Virgin Records.

The subject in a simple English sentence such as John runs, John is a teacher, or John was hit by a car is the person or thing about whom the statement is made, in this case 'John'. Traditionally the subject is the word or phrase which controls the verb in the clause, that is to say with which the verb agrees (John is but John and Mary are). If there is no verb, as in John - what an idiot!, or if the verb has a different subject, as in John - I can't stand him!, then 'John' is not considered to be the grammatical subject, but can be described as the ' topic' of the sentence.

These definitions seem clear enough for simple sentences such as the above, but as will be shown in the article below, problems in defining the subject arise when an attempt is made to extend the definitions to more complex sentences and to languages other than English. For example, in the sentence It is difficult to learn French, the grammatical subject seems to be the word 'it', and yet arguably the 'real' subject (the thing that is difficult) is 'to learn French'. (A sentence such as It was John who broke the window is more complex still.) Sentences beginning with a locative phrase, such as There is a problem, isn't there?, in which the tag question 'isn't there?' seems to imply that the subject is the adverb 'there', also create difficulties for the definition of subject.

In languages such as Latin or German the subject of a verb has a form which is known as the nominative case: for example, the form 'he' (not 'him' or 'his') is used in sentences such as he ran, he broke the window, he is a teacher, he was hit by a car. But there are some languages such as Basque or Greenlandic, in which the form of a noun or pronoun when the verb is intransitive (he ran) is different from when the verb is transitive (he broke the window). In these languages, which are known as ergative languages, the concept of 'subject' may not apply at all.

In library and information science documents (such as books, articles and pictures) are classified and searched by subject - as well as by other attributes such as author, genre and document type. This makes "subject" a fundamental term in this field. Library and information specialists assign subject labels to documents to make them findable. There are many ways to do this and in general there is not always consensus about which subject should be assigned to a given document. To optimize subject indexing and searching, we need to have a deeper understanding of what a subject is. The question: "what is to be understood by the statement 'document A belongs to subject category X'?" has been debated in the field for more than 100 years (cf., below).