Hi,
'The only one he was interested in spearing was Boris' is this an active sentence? a passive sentence? or are there other sentence types?!
Would massively appreciate your help!
Thank you xxx

Hi Emma

It's a active sentence.


PaulM

Thank you very much. Would you be able to explain to me why?
The only one he was interested in spearing was Boris
I realise Boris is the object of the sentence, and spearing and was are verbs, so what is the subject? I realise its 'he' but there are a lot of other words in that sentence too!

It's quite complicated, but I'll try to explain. Note that I've inserted the word "that" to make the analysis clearer for you:

MAIN CLAUSE: "The only one that he was interested in spearing was Boris".

The subject is the noun phrase "The only one that he was interested in spearing".
The verb is "was".
The subject complement is "Boris".
The relative clause is "that he was interested in spearing".

SUBORDINATE RELATIVE CLAUSE: "That he was interested in spearing".

The relative word is "that" (it refers to "the only one")
The subject is "he".
The verb is: "was".
The subject complement is: "interested" in spearing ________".

Note that the gap notation ______ represents the grammatical position of the object of "spearing", i.e. "the only one".

I hope that makes sense!

PaulM