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I have the following sentence.

I'm really excited to share with you some findings that really surprise me about what makes companies succeed the most, what factors actually matter the most for startup success.

And I don't understand which part of speech the word 'succeed' is. If it's predicate then where is subject?

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  • What does your dictionary say ?
    – rogermue
    Sep 17, 2015 at 8:29

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Succeed is an intransitive verb: it does not take an object. Its subject is companies.

Horses run.
Men breathe.
Companies succeed.

These are all complete sentences.

In this sentence succeed is specifically an (unmarked) infinitive, the head of an infinitival clause which is the complement of the verb makes, understood in this construction (MAKE SUBJACC VERBINF) in a causative sense.

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  • I'm sorry. I made a mistake in the question. I meant a subject.
    – Sergey
    Sep 16, 2015 at 13:09

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