Final answer:
In the sentence 'There were three things wrong with my car,' 'three things' is the subject that matches with the verb 'were.' Phrase subjects require singular verbs, and it is important to maintain subject-verb agreement by matching the number of the subject with the correct form of the verb.
Step-by-step explanation:
Identifying the subject in a sentence is crucial for understanding who or what is performing the action. To find the subject, we first locate the verb and then ask 'who' or 'what' is associated with the verb.
For the sentence 'There were three things wrong with my car,' the verb is 'were.' Asking 'what were,' we determine that 'three things' is the subject. Prepositional phrases like 'with my car' can be distracting, but they do not contain the subject of the sentence.
In cases where the subject is a phrase, such as 'To attend a party without pants' or 'Running a marathon,' these phrase subjects still pair with singular verbs because each phrase represents a single action or concept.
This is an important aspect of subject-verb agreement, where singular subjects pair with singular verbs, and plural subjects with plural verbs, despite any intervening phrases or clauses.