The tacit subject appears when a sentence does not have a pronoun or noun. For example: "We listen to music" (instead of "We listen to music").
The concept of subject is usually used to name the individual who, in a certain context, has no name or identification. Furthermore, the term refers to a grammatical function and a category in the field of philosophy.
Tacitus , for its part, is an adjective that refers to that which is not pronounced directly or formally, but rather can be inferred or assumed. The notion, on the other hand, is linked to what is silent.
What is the tacit subject
The idea of a tacit subject belongs to the realm of grammar . Those sentences that lack a name or a pronoun that can be identified have an tacit subject, also defined as an omitted subject or elliptical subject . In these cases, the subject is not explicit, but is inferred through referential means.
In this class of sentences , therefore, the subject is constructed elliptically, since there are no phonetic elements that allow it to be defined in the sentence itself.
For example: "We listen to music." In this case, "music" is a noun , although it does not act as a subject since it is not modified if the person or number of the verb changes ( "listen" , in the infinitive). The subject, in this sentence, is tacit and can be inferred from the way in which the verb appears. Since "listen" is conjugated in the first person plural, the subject must also be mentioned in the first person plural: "we." In this way, the complete sentence (that is, including an explicit subject) would be the following: «(We) Listen to music» . "We" , then, is included tacitly.
In a conversation, it is common for the tactical subject to be used several times.
Its use in different languages
The tacit subject is something very typical of our language, which is why we use it completely naturally, without being aware that it is not possible in many others. It is not necessary to reach oriental or uncommon languages, since English is not compatible with the omission of the subject, at least not to the level that we do in Spanish.
In the field of language, it is never advisable to generalize or speak definitively: evolution and everyday speech always mean that many characteristics considered vulgar or incorrect gradually creep into the pages of "accepted grammar ." Although in school we are not taught to speak English by omitting the subject, in real life, on "the street", the situation is very different: we are prepared to say "It sounds good" (which can be translated as "it sounds good to me"). "), but we end up with "Sounds good" (note that the subject, it , is omitted in the second example.
We see that English accepts the omission of the subject in some cases, especially in informal speech, but this does not mean that in most cases it is necessary to make the subject explicit; In fact, in English it is mandatory to mention it so many times that literal translations into our language often turn out to be redundant and incorrect. The tacit subject is something that we can - and should - use in formal speech, as it helps us avoid unnecessary repetition of pronouns , with a consequent increase in the clarity of communication.
When not using the tacit subject is a mistake
Just as dequeismo, queismo and verb conjugation errors that lead some Spanish speakers to place an "s" at the end of the second person singular in the Simple Past tense ("didiste s ", instead of "didiste », for example), not using the tacit subject in the recommended cases is a very common mistake and dirtyes the speech .
An example of this error could be the following sentence: "She told me she would come, and when I asked her if it was okay for me to invite Esteban, she told me she didn't want to see him." In this case, it was enough to mention the pronoun "she" at the beginning of the sentence, since in the other two propositions it can be perfectly deduced.