Senators demanding a full debate over government spying and civil liberties objected, and lawmakers simply ran out of time.
What is the verb of subject "senators"?
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1'Objected'. The words in between tell us which senators did so.– Kate BuntingCommented Mar 29, 2020 at 13:07
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The matrix (main) verb is "objected". The subordinate clause "demanding a full debate over government spying and civil liberties" has "senators" as subject and "demanding" as verb.– BillJCommented Mar 29, 2020 at 13:36
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1Incidentally, the subject of the sentence is not just senators, but "senators demanding a full debate over government spying and civil liberties".– BillJCommented Mar 29, 2020 at 13:41
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2 Answers
The main verb is "objected" (the past tense form of "to object")
The subject is "senators demanding a full debate over government spying and civil liberties", with the long participle phrase "demanding..." describing the senators who objected. The verb is intransitive and there is no direct or indirect object.
The sentence is hard to parse because it doesn't follow the principle of "end weight", in which later parts of a sentence or clause tend to be longer.
Demanding.
The verb is “demanding,” as in the senators are demanding.
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1No, at least not the way the OP presumably means the question. demanding is a (non-finite) verb in the participial clause, and senators is the subject of that; but the main (finite) verb of which senators is the subject is objected. Commented Apr 3, 2020 at 19:50
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1Subjects must have a finite (i.e. conjugated) verb. The conjugation to go with "senators" is "demand", not "demanding" (a non-finite verb form). The meaning of the sentence is not that the senators are demanding, but that they are objecting. Commented Apr 4, 2020 at 2:16