I want to know, how to identify subject and predicate of such long sentence?
Talking about our old family holidays has made me feel all nostalgic.
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2 Answers
The subject is "talking about our old family holidays."
Normally in declarative sentences in English, the subject precedes the verb. Here the verb is "has made."
A subject need not be a noun or pronoun. A participle can be used as a noun and is then called a gerund.
Swimming is good exercise.
The subject is the gerund "swimming," and the meaning is the activity denoted by the root verb of the participle.
But a participle can take an object or modifiers. In which case the entire phrase of participle plus object and modifiers becomes the subject. So your example shows a phrase headed by a gerund as subject.
Talking about our old family holidays has made me feel all nostalgic.
The subject is the gerund-participial clause in bold, and the predicate is the verb phrase that follows it, i.e. has made ne feel all nostalgic.
We know it's the subject because:
(1) It occupies the basic subject position before the verb.
(2) In subject-auxiliary inversions it occurs after the auxiliary, as in Has talking about our old family holidays made me feel all nostalgic?
