I am a little bit confused of the word order. I learnt at school that the basic word order of English sentence is a subject, a verb, an object. Each English sentence always must have a subject. But I have some sentences where it does not stand.
The text is from a shortened version of the book Frankenstein by Mary SHELLY:
" A man was sitting on the ice and near him was a broken sledge."- I was taught that the missing subject should be replaced by there. Near him should be an adverb of place.
"There was a wild storm, and with it came the most frightening thunder and lightning that I have ever seen in my life." Is the word order of the underline sentence acceptable? Where is the subject?
"About twenty metres in front of our house was a great tree." In this sentence there is not a subject too, I think.
Could you help me and explained it to me, please?
Thank you very much
Sometimes, for effect, the subject and verb are inverted in order. "A great tree was about 20 meters in front of our house" is the "normal" order.